Davis holds court

NAPA, Calif. -- On the same day the newest Oakland Raider stepped back into the spotlight, the oldest Raider lured it away.

Then again, what could just-signed Daunte Culpepper possibly say Wednesday that would be remotely as entertaining as the annual address on the state of the silver and black from Al Davis?

The Raiders owner, still fascinating after all these years, spent the first 20 minutes of his hour-long news conference talking about the late Bill Walsh before answering questions about the stalled negotiations with No. 1 pick JaMarcus Russell, the promise he sees in 32-year-old Coach Lane Kiffin, and the ever-swirling questions about his own health -- speculation that has only intensified since he started using a walker in recent years.

He was asked if anything can be read into his decision not to attend this weekend’s Hall of Fame ceremonies in Canton, Ohio.

“Hell, no,” he said. “I just want to be here. I never go back. I went back last year, and it’s a tough job to go back. I went to introduce John Madden. And I was scared to death that Ray Guy was going to get in this year and ask me to come back.”

Asked if he’s in good health, Davis, 78, said, “Take a look at me. I really am. I work out every night. You want to come watch the workout?”

He’s certainly getting more work with Raiders trainers than Russell, the quarterback from Louisiana State who cannot join the team until his contract is signed. There’s no telling when that might happen, especially with how dug-in Davis sounded about the deal talks. He said Russell wants his guaranteed money -- in the neighborhood of at least $30 million -- in the form of a “roster bonus,” which would not allow the team to recover any of that cash if something goes wrong.

Davis said the club’s investment needs to be protected so “if [Russell] doesn’t show up for camp on time we can get some of that money back. They have to be held accountable.”

Although he said he’s not sure when Russell will be in training camp, Davis had answers on a lot of other subjects.

On Walsh: “He never got the glorification or what he deserved, relative to what he contributed to professional football. Now he had his failings, there’s no question about it, but what he represented to professional football, and what stands out there today, is just unparalleled, whether it be George Halas, or Paul Brown, whoever it may be.”

On whether Walsh retired from the San Francisco 49ers too early: “Oh, yeah, he made a mistake. In my opinion? Oh, he knew he did. I bawled him out. He retired the night after we beat them in ’88. . . . After that game they looked like they were out of it. And Eddie DeBartolo called Bill in, and they decided that Bill would retire after the season. And [Bill] called me that night when we got back to Los Angeles . . . and I said, ‘What the . . . did you do that for? I don’t understand you. You’re just emotional.’ But he knew, and then they went on and won the Super Bowl, but he knew that he made a mistake.”

On how Kiffin compares to former Raiders coach Jon Gruden: “Lane has . . . an entire feel for the whole picture, whereas Jon Gruden didn’t. Jon Gruden was totally immersed in offense, and in his first year or two turned the defense over in its entirety to Willie Shaw, whereas Lane is much more into all of the things. Much more involved in trying to learn the defense.”

On Culpepper’s potential as a Raider: “The only thing I’d say about Culpepper right now is he takes me back several years, we’ve had great success through the years with guys like Culpepper. Of giving them a little time to heal, a little time to get back in stride, not pushing them, not rushing them into something. And I don’t have to tell you of probably one of our greatest players, one of the great players of the National Football League, should be in the Hall of Fame . . . Jim Plunkett.”

On the possibility Culpepper could be the Week 1 starter: “I can’t make that determination yet until I watch him for a while, until I see how [Josh] McCown comes through or Andrew [Walters] comes through. . . . It will be up to Lane. He’s got to feel comfortable with the guy. But we want to give it some time.”

On Jim Otto, his cancer-stricken confidante and Hall of Fame center who two weeks ago underwent surgery to amputate his right leg above the knee: “It’s been, as you know with him, a tremendous fight. He’s lived through it now for three years, day in and day out. But it finally came. He fought the amputation. He didn’t want it. He fought it. But there was no other thing to do but to amputate.”

On gambling by an NBA official and whether the NFL could fall prey to that: “I don’t worry about gambling, I worry about bias. I worry about bias. Because if you remember Sports Illustrated ran an article about officiating in the NFL. And one of the officials said, ‘The only thing we’re warned in our meeting, be on the lookout when you go to Oakland. Watch out when you go to Oakland.’ . . . I worry about that because we were fighting with the league. All the officials come out of the league office, all the supervisors come out of the league office.”

On what a successful season would mean to him: “We’re an underdog right now. Every one of you have got me believing we’re an underdog. I did feel and I have always felt this, that we can overcome anything. In 1980 [when the Raiders won the Super Bowl], we were picked last. You can go back and get the clips from the newspapers, last in our division and we came out of nowhere in the middle of the season.

“We can’t let this team in the first four games become a team that can’t do it. We have to bring this team along with the idea that somewhere right in the middle about game five, six or seven, we’re going to start to come around and make a run.”

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sam.farmer@latimes.com