Candlestick Pregame Anecdote — Shanahan, Elvis Grbac and Al Davis (1994)

Reporting recounts that before a 1994 game at Candlestick Park, Mike Shanahan — then San Francisco's offensive coordinator — allegedly pointed to Al Davis on the Raiders' sideline and told backup quarterback Elvis Grbac, "See Al Davis over there? I want you to throw the ball right at him" [17]. Grbac reportedly replied, "I can't do that. If I hit him, do you know what he could do to me?" and initially resisted; the play as told in later coverage involved Davis ducking and responding with an obscene gesture toward Shanahan [17]. Shanahan later downplayed and joked about the anecdote in 1998, telling reporters, "I'm sure Elvis must have gotten me confused with another person. You guys know me too well -- I wouldn't do anything like that" [17]. The episode was circulated as a colorful pregame provocation and became part of long-form pieces on their interpersonal rivalry.

The Candlestick anecdote is a concrete, personal incident that shows the feud reached beyond contract documents into on-field, face-to-face mockery. It underscores that Shanahan and Davis engaged in pointed, sometimes theatrical gestures aimed at each other that reporters preserved as emblematic examples of personality-driven rivalry, not merely organizational competition [17].

Shanahan publicly denied or joked about the specifics when the anecdote resurfaced in later profiles, but the story remained part of contemporaneous and retrospective accounts of how personally charged some Broncos–Raiders encounters were in the 1990s [17]. The episode did not produce formal discipline or legal action but became a memorable example of direct, personal provocation between the two men.