Michael Leonard Davis (April 15, 1956 – April 25, 2021) was an American professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player who was a

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to risk management, the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL).

College career

Davis played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

at the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...

, where was part of a team that won the 1976 Big 8 Championship. He was a 1976 NEA All American.

Professional career

Davis played for the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raide ...

between 1978 and 1985. During that time he was a starter on the Raiders

Super Bowl XV Super Bowl XV was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Oakland Raiders and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Philadelphia Eagles to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...

and

Super Bowl XVIII Super Bowl XVIII was an American football game played on January 22, 1984, at Tampa Stadium between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion and defending Super Bowl XVII champion Washington Redskins and the American Football Conference ( ...

winning teams. Davis is best known for making a key interception at the end of the 1980 AFC Conference playoff game with the Cleveland Browns, in a play known as

Red Right 88 Red Right 88 was a passing play called by the Cleveland Browns during the January 4, 1981 American Football Conference divisional playoff game against the Oakland Raiders; in the years since, the term has been used to refer to the game itself an ...

. He finished his career with the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

in 1987. Davis' superb play was often overlooked by fans and reporters because he rarely made interceptions (partly because the Raiders didn't often need him to help their star cornerbacks, partly because he wasn't a good pass-catcher and dropped a number of potential picks during his career) and because advanced statistics that would have shown what a truly great safety he was did not exist when he played.

Personal life

Davis died at age 65 on April 25, 2021.

References

External links

NFL.com player page
1956 births 2021 deaths Players of American football from Berkeley, California American football safeties Colorado Buffaloes football players Oakland Raiders players Los Angeles Raiders players San Diego Chargers players {{defensiveback-1950s-stub