Jan 25, 2008

Raiders still have not recovered from Robbins tragedy

By Monte Poole / MediaNews

There was a time, not long ago, when the Oakland Raiders had game. They had rediscovered their magic and regained their swagger, only to lose it five years ago today.

It is reasonable to wonder, after five listless and empty seasons, whether the Raiders will ever get back to where they were on the morning of Jan. 25, 2003.

The day before Oakland was to represent the AFC in Super Bowl 37, players went through their customary exercises. They finished an afternoon walk-through, convened at their San Diego hotel to eat and finalize plans. They were confident, with good reason.

The 2002 Raiders were a juggernaut, scoring an NFL-high 450 points and rolling to 20- and 17-point wins in the AFC playoffs.

On kickoff's eve, however, they were not whole.

Barret Robbins, the massive center who for several years had been the driving force in the middle of the offensive line, finally selected for the Pro Bowl, had abandoned his teammates on the eve of the biggest game of their careers. He missed the walk-through, didn't show up for evening meetings.

Hobbled by a surgically repaired knee, Robbins limped about all week. Observing his wobble, I wondered if he'd play and whether he'd be effective.

Disappearing, though, was inconceivable.

Coaches were irate, teammates by turns curious, angry and disgusted. They could not fathom how someone who had spent six months laboring with them, laughing with them, sharing with them, cooking for them - hoping for this very moment - could up and vanish.

Turns out, a lot more than one man went away that night.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the day something awful happened to Robbins and to the Raiders. Neither has recovered. It was, in retrospect, the night of two deaths: B-Robb's career and Oakland's status as an elite team.

The beat-down absorbed by Oakland at Qualcomm Stadium the next day is recorded for posterity. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were quicker and sharper and smarter, humiliating the Raiders 48-21 in the championship game.

The outcome was orchestrated by Bucs head coach Jon Gruden, one year removed from the same position in Oakland.

Gruden spent four years with the Raiders, compiling a 38-26 record, earning enough trust from team owner Al Davis to have a voice in assembling the roster. Gruden's successor, Bill Callahan, benefited from the fact that Gruden had pushed and pushed and pushed until Oakland was a contender, with a roster any coach could enjoy coaching.

A roster that included Robbins as an essential part of the offense.

B-Robb was the anchor of Oakland's last reliable offensive line. He analyzed defenses and called signals for the line. When he wasn't using his 325 pounds as thrust for the running game, he was hunkering down to provide protection for quarterback Rich Gannon's MVP season.

It's not a stretch to say Robbins was the most valuable member of a line that laid the groundwork for the league's top offense.

He also was gregarious, an overgrown kid, a latter-day Falstaff. B-Robb ate big, laughed big and cared big. Having spent seven years around him, I questioned many things - but never, ever the goodness of his heart.

Robbins is such a sensitive soul that it was easy to see, as he sat in the locker room after a playoff game, something was bothering him. Asked about it, he said he was trying to cope with the recent murder of a friend in Texas.

That's the first thing I recalled upon hearing Sunday morning that B-Robb was not with the Raiders and that nobody knew where he was.

Over the course of the day came tales of B-Robb slipping out of the Hyatt Regency La Jolla late Friday or early Saturday and crossing the border, going into Tijuana and drinking himself wacky.

It was as if everything inside Robbins - troubled relationships, murdered friend, gimpy knee, Super Bowl pressure, importance to the team - conspired to create a suffocating blanket of misery from which he was desperate to escape.

Later, as the Raiders answered questions about their feeble performance and their wayward teammate, Robbins lay in a hospital bed.

We can only guess what was going through his mind.

Football was important to B-Robb. He had explained, without specifics, that he was battling a medical condition and that football was therapeutic. He needed its intensity, its physical demands. It helped keep him sane.

The implication? Without football, he might go off the rails.

And what do you know? Robbins, now 34, never played again.

Released from the hospital after three days, Robbins spent a month at the Betty Ford Clinic. An alcoholic diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he showed up for camp with the Raiders, apologized to anyone who would listen and, still gimpy, requested his release that July.

Oakland's running game - and the rest of the offense - went with him.

The '02 Raiders scored 30 or more points six times in 19 games, playoffs included. In 80 games since, they have reached that mark, yes, six times.

Oakland over the past five seasons has lost 61 of 80 games - easily their worst stretch ever. The brain trust is convinced it's just a phase.

But it's more than that. It's as if the Raiders were knocked cold and, five years later, have yet to be revived.

Meanwhile, B-Robb's life unspooled. His wife, Marisa, filed for divorce in 2004, partly to protect their two daughters from Barret's mood swings. Two months later, in January 2005, after Robbins was found hiding in a women's restroom in Miami Beach, he scuffled with cops and was shot three times.

He survived, barely, to face attempted murder charges. Robbins was convicted and, with an insanity defense, received five years of probation.

He rejoined the living, which is not the same as getting his life back.