Former Raiders Quarterback Ken ‘Snake’ Stabler Dies at 69

Tom Flores, the ex- Raiders coach and an assistant at the time, said Madden cut practice short and was concerned Stabler had peaked too soon.

Stabler’s family released a statement through his foundation, saying he had been battling cancer since February.

When the Tuscaloosa News broke the story that former Oakland Raiders’ great Ken Stabler passed earlier on Thursday, it was met with stunned disbelief.

His death was confirmed by Fox WBRC, via a University of Alabama spokesman, and through a statement from Stabler’s family. He wore the silver and black with pride and poise and will continue to live in the hearts of Raider fans everywhere.

Our thoughts must be with his family, with our thanks for all the wonderful memories that he gave all in the Raider Nation. In 1976, the year the Raiders won the Superbowl, he completed 66.7% of his passes, a figure unheard of in the 70’s. While today’s games against the Ravens are always viewed with deserved intensity, it is unlikely that any rivalry will match the intensity of the Raiders and the Steelers in the 1970s.

Only a quarterback like Stabler could have signature games that sound like cheesy 70’s movie titles.

(1) – One NFL Most Valuable Player for the 1974 season.

Ken Stabler, who was one of pro football’s leading quarterbacks of the 1970s and took the Oakland Raiders to the first Super Bowl victory in their history, died Wednesday in Gulfport, Mississippi.

“He was such a big part of the great Raider success”, Hall of Fame coach John Madden told the Los Angeles Times by phone Thursday, his voice cracking with emotion. “Of all the people I coached, and I coached a lot of great ones, a lot of Hall of Famers, he’s one of the guys who’s really at the top of the class”.

He had been acquired by the Oilers in 1980 for quarterback Dan Pastorini and led Houston to the playoffs, where he lost in a wild-card game to the Raiders, the eventual Super Bowl champions.

Kenny “The Snake” Stabler died Wednesday from colon cancer complications. “We all loved Kenny”. Stabler also at one time held the record for fastest quarterback to win 100 games (150 total games).

Ken Stabler during a radio broadcast during the first round of the Regions Charity Classic at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at Ross Bridge in Hoover, Alabama on May 18, 2007. In 29 games, had a 61 percent completion percentage, passed for 5,190 yards and 27 touchdowns and 46 interceptions. Stabler would be named the NFL MVP that year. He led his team town the Super Bowl XI versus the Minnesota Vikings. “He is preceded in death by his father, Leroy Stabler, and mother, Sally Stabler”.

Vella said Stabler would occasionally ask for another second or two to throw when the Raiders were in a difficult situation and that, “It was never hard to come up with an extra effort for a guy like Kenny”. That makes you wonder, if the league’s network considers him worthy of an entire day’s programming, then why don’t Hall of Fame voters find him worthy of enshrinement? “You’d go over here to tackle him and he’d be over there and so we found out pretty quickly what kind of athlete he was because we could hardly tackle him”, Crane recalled.