The 1981 season was 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 Ra ...

' 22nd since they were founded, their 12th 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 majo ...

and their third under

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in asso ...

Tom Flores. The team failed to improve on their 11–5 record from 1980, and the Raiders went 7–9 and became the fourth team in NFL history to enter a season as the defending

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the gam ...

champions and miss the playoffs. The 1981 Raiders set an NFL record by being shut out three consecutive times. The passing game fell off badly, being 26th and throwing 28 interceptions. After the defense led the NFL in interceptions and takeaways in 1980, they were dead last in 1981 and were –16 in turnover differential. It was also their last season in Oakland until

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

and their losing record snapped a streak of 16 consecutive winning seasons. This was the only season from

1965 Events January–February * January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in for a full term ...

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal en ...

where the Raiders finished with a losing record.

Offseason

NFL Draft

Roster

Regular season

Schedule

Game summaries

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Pro-Football-Reference.com
Retrieved 2014-Feb-10.

Standings

References

Oakland Raiders seasons

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...

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