Hall of Fame receiver Tim Brown was drafted by the Los Angeles Raiders in 1988, moved with them to Oakland in 1995 and stayed there until 2003. He has a history with the team and a knowledge of what a move is like, and he feels for the loyal fans in Oakland being left behind.
“I’m certainly sad for the Raider fans in Oakland because, once again, the team is going to be leaving,” Brown said this morning on PFT Live.
But Brown thinks those Oakland fans will continue cheering for the team before it moves to Las Vegas, at least as long as the team plays as well as it did last year.
“There’s no way Raider Nation is going to frown on good football. They’ve been waiting on good football a long time and are happy to get it back,” Brown said.
Brown realizes the business reasons -- Nevada is willing to spend hundreds of millions on a new stadium -- but that doesn’t mean he likes it. Still, he thinks this more gradual move will be easier than the Raiders’ 1995 move from Oakland to Los Angeles.
“We basically did it overnight,” Brown said. “I think we found out in late May or early June that we had to have a place in Oakland by the time we got out of training camp in August. So that was a very difficult process.”
This process will be easier on the players, but it may be harder on the fans to sit in the stands cheering a team that will soon be gone.