Shocking : NFL Just received a heartbroken news, RIP”: Tom Brady’s Raiders Join NFL Community to Mourn Loss of Super Bowl Champ Who Passed Away at 74 …..Read More

Shocking: NFL Just received a heartbroken news, RIP”: Tom Brady’s Raiders Join NFL Community to Mourn Loss of Super Bowl Champ Who Passed Away at 74 .
The Raiders fans will fondly recall the 1976 AFC Championship game. That day, the famed Steel Curtain defense of Pittsburgh was pierced time and again as the two-time defending Super Bowl champions were humbled at the Oakland Coliseum.

The Raiders, beaten by the Steelers in the previous two conference championship games, knew they were heading in for a fight, and one player epitomized their spirit above all that day. It was their second-round draft selection from USC, John Vella, who got into a confrontation with the Steelers linebacker Jack Lambert, also known as ‘Mad Man Jack.’
Lambert was going after Raiders running back Clarence Davis in the end zone after he scored a touchdown. However, Vella was not having it and jumped into action.

“Lambert was kind of roughing up Clarence, so I grabbed him and threw him off. It might have been unusual to get into it with Lambert (whom one columnist the next day described as “a madman”), but we were a team that wouldn’t back down from anyone,” Vella said in 2001. This is how many Raiders fans will remember Vella, after the news of his passing was announced on Wednesday.
On X, the Raiders made a heartfelt post noting, “The Raiders Family mourns the passing of John Vella, a standout on the dominant Raider offensive lines of the 1970s and a starter on Oakland’s Super Bowl XI Championship team…A versatile performer and a ferocious competitor, Vella played both guard and tackle, seeing action in 84 games with 48 starts in eight seasons with the Silver and Black.
He finished his career with Minnesota in 1980. The prayers of the entire Raider Nation are with the Vella family at this time.” No cause of death was shared as of this moment.