I use both of those sites

I use both of those sites
by ShermanOaksND (2018-12-10 14:18:09)
Edited on 2018-12-10 14:24:50

In reply to: Curious: What is their record in LA vs Raiders posted by saintapollonia

I specifically use footballdb.com for head-to-head history between two NFL teams. It reminded me that the Raiders didn't play in Pittsburgh for 20 years, from 1980 until 2000. The "Los Angeles Raiders" never once played in Pittsburgh. The teams played at Three Rivers 6 times from 1972 to 1980, including 2 playoff games. The Steelers won both playoff games, but the Raiders won 3 straight regular season games in Pittsburgh after losing the 1972 opener.

The scheduling formulas in place from 1978-1994 and 1995-2001 (very similar with some tweaks) created many oddities, including that 20-year gap in Raider visits to Pittsburgh, the Bears going to San Francisco far more often than the 49ers to Chicago (10-2 split in regular season games from 1975-2000), no regular season games at all between the Bears and Giants from 1977 to 1987 (and no Bears regular season games at the Giants from 1977 to 1995)---and weirdest of all, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers not playing a single game at Buffalo from their 1976 founding until 2009.

Reminds me of an old Chris Berman commentary on

NFL Primetime about the Cowboys and the Raiders. He called it "the greatest rivalry ... that never was". Due to the scheduling formula in place at the time, those two iconic franchises rarely met back in the 70s and 80s.

That is true

In fact, the Cowboys and the Raiders were the final two of the 26 teams in the original post-merger NFL to play one another. Their first meeting was in the season finale in 1974, at the very end of the fifth post-merger season. There were only 8 other NFC-AFC matchups that had not yet occurred entering the 1974 season (7 if you exclude Dolphins-Redskins, who had met in SB VII but not in the regular season). (The others were Jets-Bears, Oilers-Vikings, Bills-Packers, Giants-Chiefs, Bengals-49ers, Rams-Patriots, and Eagles-Chargers.)

Of course, the Cowboys and Raiders were almost annually expected to meet in the Super Bowl, and came very close to doing so several times -- particularly after the 1967, 1970, 1975, 1977, and 1980 seasons, when one made the Super Bowl and the other lost the league/conference championship game. That doesn't even include 1976, when both teams were regarded as best in their respective conference, but Dallas's offense sagged when Roger Staubach broke his pinky against the Bears, and they lost the divisional playoff to the Rams. It also doesn't include 1973, when both lost conference championship games by identical 27-10 scores (Dallas to the favored Vikings, Oakland at the defending and repeat champion Dolphins).

In any event, the "dream matchup" never occurred in a Super Bowl. And it wasn't until 1983 that the Raiders first played a regular season game at Dallas, and the first of three Oakland at Dallas games was not until 1998 (the LA Raiders played there in 1983 and 1986).