On defense, Mr. Davis’s Raiders were known for aggressiveness, meanness and borderline dirty play. The bump and run — a tactic in which a defensive back hits a wide receiver hard at the line of scrimmage to throw him off his route — was developed, if not invented, by Mr. Davis’s Raiders.

Their safeties and cornerbacks (most notably Lester Hayes) became known in the 1970s and ’80s for smearing their hands with Stickum, not only to amplify the potential for fingertip interceptions but to make it tougher for the bumped receivers to tear away from coverage. Raiders players attracted nicknames like the Mad Bomber (Lamonica), the Snake (Stabler), Dr. Death (defensive back Skip Thomas) and the Assassin, bestowed upon safety Jack Tatum, whose hit in a 1978 preseason game broke the neck of New England Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley and paralyzed him.

“I don’t want to be the most respected team in the league,” Mr. Davis said in 1981. “I want to be the most feared.”

When Mr. Davis was hired as the head coach and general manager of the Raiders in 1963, the team was playing in the A.F.L., the fledgling rival to the N.F.L., and until his arrival, the Raiders had won only 9 of 42 games. They went 10-4 in Mr. Davis’s first season and 58-21-5 in the six after that, going to the second Super Bowl in January 1968.

The Raiders played in the A.F.L. championship game in 1967, 1968 and 1969, and when the A.F.L. and the N.F.L. merged in 1969, they went to the first of their 11 conference championship games in 1970. Mr. Davis’s Raiders played in five Super Bowls, winning three, Super Bowls XI in 1977, XV in 1981 and XVIII in 1984. From 1963 to 1985, the Raiders compiled an overall record of 229-91-11, the highest winning percentage of any team in professional sports during that time.

“Davis has become the iconoclast of American sports through four decades of inspiring hatred and love for a football team,” The New York Times wrote about Mr. Davis in 2003, on the eve of the Raiders’ most recent appearance in the Super Bowl, which they lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “He has been likened to Darth Vader, the dark lord of the ‘Star Wars’ movies. He has a story not unlike Frank Sinatra — East Coast reared, visionary talent who soars to the top, falls on hard times, and returns triumphant by trusting himself first, second and third. It has made Davis’s team a target of derision and praise. It has left Davis a figure of scorn and respect.”