The man’s not smart when it comes to hair (dude, seriously: try SuperCuts), but he’s making a lot of sense here:
If no fans are admitted, Davis said, he will not attend games, either. As the lone dissenting vote on the league owners' recent decision to tarp off the first eight rows of seats from the field in each stadium and cover them with advertisements, Davis said the Raiders' idea of leaving the seats for fans and erecting hockey-style plexiglass around the bottom of the stadium to separate fans from players on the sidelines was "shot down" before the vote.
"No one fan is more important to me than another, no matter if they paid for a $75,000 PSL or a $500 PSL," Davis told ESPN.com Sunday night. "They're all Raider fans to me. My mindset today is no fans [should attend games].
"I don't even know if it's safe to play. 'Uncertainty' is the word."
Regardless of fans at games, Davis said he sees three options for the NFL at the moment:
1. Go on as planned, with teams reporting for training camp over the next week, and see what happens.
2. Delay the start of the season until November and go to a 12-game season, cancelling each team's four interconference games. (For the Raiders, that would mean games at the
Carolina Panthers and
Atlanta Falcons and home games against the
New Orleans Saints and
Tampa Bay Buccaneers.)
3. Cancel the 2020 season entirely. …
Davis said with no fans, it will be a "soft opening" for the team's $1.9 billion, 65,000-seat domed stadium near the Las Vegas Strip, with an eye on going bigger in 2021, should the
coronavirus pandemic subside by then.
"We want our inaugural season to be something special," he said. "I don't even know if we'll light the [Al Davis] torch. These are all potentials and respecting all."
In saying that he would stay away from games if he decides to exclude fans from Allegiant Stadium, Davis said only people "essential to the production of the game" should be in attendance.
"The only thing I'm essential for is after the game, yelling at Jon [Gruden]," Davis joked of the Raiders' coach. "I can do that over the phone."