10 best seasons in Raiders franchise history
By John Buhler
1. 1976: 13-1 (Won Super Bowl XI over Minnesota Vikings)
The 1976 Oakland Raiders were the best team in franchise history for several reasons. They crushed just about everybody en route to their first Super Bowl Championship in franchise history. Oakland lost one game during the season, a game the Raiders would avenge in the AFC Playoffs.
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Oakland would go 13-1 with their only defeat being a soul-crushing one to the New England Patriots on the road 48-17 in Week 4. The Raiders would take that awful loss in stride and then proceed to run the table, winning 13 games in a row to win the Super Bowl.
The path to Super Bowl XI in the AFC ran through the Coliseum. Oakland avenged its Week 4 loss by edging out the Patriots in the divisional round, 24-21. It might have been a bicentennial celebration in America in 1976, but the Patriots would have to wait until 2001 to win their first Super Bowl.
Oakland would sink a regular nemesis in the 1970s in the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1976 AFC Championship. After a 24-7 victory over the Steelers, Oakland would face the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI. It would be the fourth Super Bowl appearance in 11 years for the Vikings, but again they couldn’t get it done.
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Oakland won the game 32-14 over the Vikings to win John Madden his only Super Bowl Championship of his brief, but excellent head coaching career. Over 40 years later, the 1976 Raiders are not just the best team in franchise history, but one of the greatest teams ever assembled. It is routinely in discussion for the best single-season team all-time.