I realize that I'm old, but I remember when I was a kid, that Raiders weren't such an embarrassment.
I'm not young either and I kinda remember them always being an embarrassment. When they were winning big they had the rep of being the freaking dirtiest at doing it and back then that was pretty freaking dirty...
That was the thing, though...they won and their games were frequently "Game of the Week" and they were on MNF as much as the contract allowed. They also had an ability to take players who everyone else thought were washed up and get a couple great seasons out of them.