Raiders-49ers Set To Renew "Rivalry"

When the Las Vegas Raiders travel to Santa Clara, CA, on Sunday to meet the "San Francisco" 49ers, it will test the bounds of what the word "rivalry" means from a sporting perspective.

Generally, "rivalry" is defined as "competition for the same objective or for superiority in the same field."

So, in that sense, the Raiders and 49ers are rivals in that every season they both hope to be recognized as the best team in the NFL via winning the Super Bowl.

But in sports, defining a "rivalry" tends to be more visceral and personal than just chasing the same ultimate goal. It needs history, in many cases it needs proximity and it most definitely needs passion - and, yes, that passion can be allowed to spill over into "hate."

So, the Raiders against any of the Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers, all of which they have a nearly 70-year history of engaging in multiple yearly hammer-and-tongs battles with? Yes, all of them are unquestionably rivalries.

The 49ers? That's a different question. Or, the answer may have been modified over the years.

The teams have met 15 times since the AFL-NFL merger went into effect in 1970 (Oakland/LA/Vegas holds an 8-7 edge). Eight of those meetings - covering the years 1970-79 and 200-2014 - came when both were residing in their original homes at the Oakland Coliseum and Candlestick Park.

When teams are separated by a 22-mile car or BART trip or you can climb to the top row of one stadium and, on a clear day, see the other looming across San Francisco Bay, then, yes, the rivalry exists - even though you typically play only once every four seasons - and has even earned the right to a catchy nickname, such as "Battle of the Bay."

Over the years, the were some memorable games between the two, with perhaps the most famous coming on Sept. 12, 1982, which was the season-opener for both teams. That game saw the Raiders, who had won the Super Bowl in 1980, travel to Candlestick to face the defending 1981 Super Bowl champion 49ers.

In a back-and-forth contest, the Raiders spotted the 49ers a 17-13 lead after three quarters before quarterback Jim Plunkett found tight end Todd Christensen for a 3-yard go-ahead score before Chris Bahr closed the scoring with a 43-yard field goal in the 23-17 Raiders' victory.

One tiny detail prevented that matchup from being a true "Battle of the Bay," however. You see, the Raiders had relocated to Los Angeles by then, meaning it was technically a "Battle of the I-5 Freeway," not the Bay.

It's things like that that bring into question whether or not Raiders-49ers remains a true rivalry. The teams five times while the Raiders were stationed in LA. Then, in 2014, the 49ers moved 90 minutes south to Santa Clara, from where you could look across the Bay and most definitely not see the Oakland Coliseum, where the Raiders had returned to by then.

The Raiders added even more distance between the two when they embarked for Las Vegas in advance of the 2020 season. Since both teams have been in their new homes, they have met once with the 49ers posting a 37-34 overtime win over the Raiders in Las Vegas on Jan. 1, 2023.

For what it's worth, the NFL itself might have the final say in whether or not Raiders-49ers remains a rivalry. With an 18-game regular-season NFL schedule a locked-on certainty at some point in the near future, it has been suggested that the extra game could be an annual meeting between geographic "rivals," with Raiders-49ers recently listed as one of the most prominent ones.

That's a topic for another day as the Raiders get ready to face - true rivalry or not - a 6-1 49ers team on Sunday (3:25 p.m. PT) that is coming off its bye and smarting from a 29-20 loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Oct. 25, its first of the season.

The Raiders will arrive in Santa Clara hoping that there is momentum to be built after their 38-33 road defeat of the New York Jets on Sunday.