Thanks, Jim, for Being Such a Classy Act

We do not know who is going to quarterback the Raiders this season, but we do know that Jim Plunkett is not.

To that, we have only one word to add.

Thanks.

Not thanks to the Raiders. They merely did what they had to do, releasing a 40-year-old quarterback who no longer fit into their plans.

No, our thanks go to Jim Plunkett, who came in like a lion and went out like . . . well, a lion.

Jim Plunkett gave this team and this town a lot of joy. He was not the most talented quarterback who ever took a snap, but he was brave and bold and a winner, more often than not. We spend so much time discussing and hissing the Raider quarterbacks that too often we neglect to say thank you to someone such as Plunkett for a job well done.

Plunk, you stood in there, Sunday after Sunday, when things were good and when things were rotten. You were there when the Raiders took the Super Bowl at New Orleans, and you were there when the Raiders could no longer beat New Orleans if they had the chance.

When we booed you, or Marc Wilson, or Rusty Hilger, we weren’t really booing you. We were booing the state of affairs. We were booing the mere fact of the matter that the franchise that gave us Ken Stabler and Daryle Lamonica and George Blanda was now giving us something less.

In your prime, Plunk, you were never less. You won that Super Bowl against Philadelphia, and, just for good measure, you won another one against Washington. You were most valuable player of Super Bowl XV, passing for three touchdowns. You were always ready to stand and deliver.

On the day the Raiders let you go, boss Al Davis was talking about those Super Bowl wins, about how the ability to achieve such success is “the thing which seems to be how we are judged in our culture.” Truer words were never spoken.

But maybe now is the time to say thanks, not for those Roman numeral conquests, but for all those days when you were flattened by some onrushing lineman with the Raiders losing by 20 points. To say thanks for all your efforts, even when you theoretically were too old to be playing.

We never meant to take that for granted, all those times we were booing. We always appreciated you, Jim Plunkett, and we always knew that, even if your flesh was weaker than it once was, your spirit was always willing.

There you were, still in camp, still ready to give it another try. You didn’t quit them. They quit you.

When you were voted the American Football Conference’s rookie of the year, Richard Nixon was in office, Johnny Unitas was quarterback of the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Colts, and the radio was playing Mamas and Papas music. It was 1971. And there you were, as of Monday, still out there trying.

Nine years after you began your pro football career, you were playing second fiddle to Dan Pastorini. The San Francisco 49ers had released you. When Pastorini fractured a leg, you grabbed a helmet and ran into the Raider huddle--the Oakland Raider huddle. It was the fifth game of the 1980 season.

“I was tempted to call it quits and enter private business,” you said. “But I thought, ‘Well, maybe if I give it one more try, things will work out.’

“I have some good friends, people I can trust, and they stayed with me. They said, ‘Look, you can still play. You’ve just been stuck in some circumstances which weren’t the best. It’s just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.’ ”

By January, you were leading the wild-card, wild-partying Raiders to a 27-10 victory over the Eagles in Super Bowl XV.

And there you still were Monday, still with the Raiders, still eager to lead them to Super Bowl XXIII.

We get the feeling that if given half a chance, Plunk, you would be willing to stick around for Super Bowl XXX. Maybe even Super Bowl L.

You were as young and sweet as your number, 16. “Plunkett is the most efficient quarterback I’ve ever played with,” said wide receiver Cliff Branch, who, like yourself, continues to play football even though his head tells his heart he has had enough. “They said Jim didn’t have it anymore, but all he needed was good people around him.”

Branch said that in 1981. Now, as time goes by, Branch finds himself confined to arena football, and Plunkett is finally on his way to his beer distributorship. But nobody can say of either man that he ever gave up.

Plunkett never did take himself out of the game. The Raiders had to do it for him. All he did Monday was nod his head, turn in his playbook and say a classy goodby with a tip of his helmet. Jim Plunkett went out the way he came in--with style.

Somebody asked Plunkett after his 1981 Super Bowl success if he felt vindicated, having been released and abandoned by the 49ers three years before.

“Do I feel vindicated? No, not really,” he said. “Vindication implies bitterness, and I don’t feel bitterness toward anybody.”

We are the ones today who feel a bitter taste, Plunk, for not having told you before how much you meant to us all these seasons.

It won’t be the same without you.

Come back sometime soon, so we can throw a day on your behalf. It will be a day like no other day we can remember. The quarterback of the Raiders will step onto the field, and we will stand up and cheer. That’s because the quarterback will be you.