Throughout the 2026 season, Raiders.com is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the team's Super Bowl XI Championship by highlighting unsung heroes from the 1976 team along with thrilling moments and untold stories of a campaign that will go down in history as among the greatest in the annals of professional football.

How can a Hall of Fame coach, who was also the first quarterback in franchise history, serve as some sort of unsung hero?

When it's Tom Flores, and when the erstwhile Ice Man worked in the shadows as an assistant coach for John Madden's Lombardi Trophy-winning team in 1976.

Need proof?

"If it wasn't for Tom being on staff and essentially being the offensive coordinator," Hall of Fame receiver Fred Biletnikoff told me, "we never would have been in the Super Bowl."

How was that, exactly?

"That's how good he was," Biletnikoff answered. "It's that simple. Outstanding. He was just outstanding."

To be clear, while Hall of Fame quarterback Ken Stabler called his own plays, Flores was the Raiders receivers coach, one of just seven assistants in 1976. There was no offensive coordinator. No tight ends coach. No QB coach. No quality control guys.

So Biletnikoff's point is well taken.

Even if Biletnikoff could not point to one specific moment from that season where Flores shined. He was just always there.

Flores was a feeling. A vibe.

"He," Biletnikoff said of Flores, "was always very quiet."

The mellow yin to the oft-manic Madden's yang, especially in that wild and wooly championship season that saw the Raiders go 16-1, including the postseason.

Flores, 89, and the lone surviving member of that coaching staff from 1976, played for the Raiders from 1960-66 (he held the franchise record with six touchdown passes against the Houston Oilers in 1963) before playing two seasons with the Bills and two more with the Chiefs, with whom he won his first Super Bowl ring.

He returned to the Raiders as receivers coach in 1972.

"As coaches, we felt we were mature, even though we were young, and we could handle it," Flores told me last week. "The job wasn't easy, but…"

Flores' voice trailed off.

He perked up, though, when I mentioned him coaching Gold Jackets in Biletnikoff, Cliff Branch and tight end Dave Casper.

"I played with Fred, so I knew him," said Flores and, indeed, Biletnikoff's first career catch (an 18-yard pickup) and first career touchdown reception (an 8-yarder) both came from the arm of Flores, in 1965 against the Patriots, and 1966 against the Chargers, respectively.

"Then I coached him."

And, ironically enough, one of Flores' first moves upon replacing Madden as head coach in 1979 was to cut Biletnikoff.

But I digress…

"Cliff was a little puppy," Flores laughed, before moving on to his tight end. "Ghost was talented. Boy, we could do a lot of things with him. Smart as hell."

In fact, it was Flores who called down from the press box in Baltimore a year after the Super Bowl season to tell Stabler to "look for Ghost to the post" in an epic playoff win.

But in 1976, Flores oversaw pass catchers who dominated the league.

Branch led all NFL receivers with 12 TDs and averaged 24.2 yards per reception on 46 catches for 1,111 yards.

Casper, meanwhile, led all NFL tight ends in catches (53) and touchdown receptions (10), with 691 receiving yards that season.

And Biletnikoff was named Super Bowl XI MVP after catching four passes for 79 yards, with three of his catches setting the Raiders up inside the Vikings' 3-yard line.

As Mike Siani, a backup receiver on that 1976 Raiders team said, Flores was "particular" with how his charges ran their routes and used linen to make his point.

"I want you to take six steps this way," Siani recalled Flores telling him.

"And then he put a towel down on the ground and he says, 'OK, your left foot hits this towel and then you turn to the right and take four steps that way. And then you turn, and the quarterback's gonna throw you the ball.'

"He was very disciplined in teaching us. … He wanted all the receivers to run the routes exactly the same."

Yes, It was a different game.

"Back then, we threw the ball 15 yards, 20 yards downfield," Siani added. "We weren't throwing the ball two and three yards like they do today. So it took a while to get downfield, weaving in and out, and our offensive line needed to give [Stabler] plenty of time to throw the ball.

"Boom, as soon as you made your cut, if you were open, you knew you were gonna get that ball. Tom was a great coach."

One who leaned into his background as a quarterback.

"He knew how to show us - how do you beat that defensive back? How do you get away from that linebacker? And look out when you're crossing over the middle because the linebacker is gonna be looking for you," Siani said. "He could see those things from a quarterback's perspective."

Flores, who went on to serve as Raiders head coach from 1979-87, became the first minority coach to win a Super Bowl. And he did it twice, in the 1980 and 1983 seasons. He made more history as the first minority general manager in NFL history, with the Seahawks, and took his rightful place in Canton in 2021, joining the likes of Madden, Biletnikoff, Casper, Stabler and Branch (along with Art Shell, Gene Upshaw, Willie Brown, Ted Hendricks, Ray Guy and, of course Al Davis) from that 1976 team in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Last spring, Flores was a member of the inaugural class for the Hispanic Football Hall of Fame.

All goals that were far from imaginable in 1976.

"As an assistant, it was fun," Flores said of Super Bowl XI. "I had been there as a player, but as a player, it's an entirely different situation. As an assistant coach, you go in and you're part of the planning. You're part of this, you're part of that. It's not as exciting as it is as a player because you don't get involved in the hoopla as much. You're just working all the time. Even during the week of the Super Bowl, you're working.

"Coaches have to work. They have to. When the players are on free time, that's when you're planning … so it was rewarding because you're glowing all week long and you feel good about yourself. You feel good about your team."

It all crystallized for the Raiders and the ascending assistant three days before Super Bowl XI with Stabler absolutely dealing on the practice field.

"The ball only touched the ground once," Flores told Sports Illustrated in 1981. "John Madden was standing next to me, and he said, 'What do you think, Tom?' and I said, 'Throw a blanket over him and get him out of here. This is scary.'"

The Raiders all but sent the Vikings to Valhalla with the 32-14 demolition at the Rose Bowl, the team's first Super Bowl title after losing six AFL-AFC title games in the previous eight years.

So the understated Flores, who already had a ring from Super Bowl IV, took it all in from the shadows.

"I'm happy for John and for Al because … they couldn't win that game," Flores said. "They couldn't win that game. And to see their eyes after the game and the smile on their faces, I was just happy because I was in the background. I was not part of anything upfront because I was an assistant coach, and I wasn't a player, and I wasn't the head coach. So, I was kind of in the back, just enjoying and watching.

"That part was the best part - to see the glory. I had already been [in] a winning locker room and I knew what the glory was in there."

So THAT's how Flores was an unsung hero.

For more on the season-long celebration of Super Bowl XI, visit raiders.com/super-bowl-xi.