Pro Football / Bob Oates : Raiders’ Home Run Game May Be Back

After winning the Super Bowl two years ago, the Raiders fell short last year when their quarterbacks, Jim Plunkett and Marc Wilson, were both handicapped by injuries, often at the same time.

Thus the most significant plays of the Raider exhibition season so far were the long passes Plunkett and Wilson threw for touchdowns Sunday against the Washington Redskins.

It really wasn’t important that each play was nullified by a penalty. Two other things mattered more:

--Both quarterbacks threw the ball far, showing their old power and accuracy.

--Their receivers, Dokie Williams and Jessie Hester, the No. 1 draft choice, showed the speed and skill necessary to turn bombs into touchdowns.

Owner Al Davis prefers long passes, reasoning that they open the rest of the Raiders’ attack. With healthier quarterbacks, their long-ball offense may be coming back.

The revived blitzing defenses, including those at Chicago, St. Louis and Seattle, have forced some NFL offensive changes, at least in the exhibition season.

For one thing, most quarterbacks are throwing the ball quicker. Even Tom Landry’s Dallas passers have abandoned the seven-step dropback, keeping only the three and the five.

But the Raiders are basically unchanged offensively from 20 years ago. They still want blockers to hold their blocks while the passers hold the ball waiting for a deep receiver to get open.

The strategic question of the year for the Raiders is whether their offensive line--or any line--can play that kind of football now. There will be another clue or two Saturday night when they and the Miami Dolphins play at the Coliseum.

The word is that Bobby Beathard, the Washington Redskins’ general manager, will move to San Diego as general manager of the Chargers when his contract expires after the 1986 season.

“The report is just a rumor and it’s flat wrong,” Beathard said the other day. “My family prefers the East now. They won’t even come out here to vacation.”

He seemed to mean it, but other sources still think the two-time NFL executive of the year is San Diego-bound.

The Redskins have outfinished all opponents for the last three years in Dallas’ division, the NFC East, and like Bill Walsh in San Francisco, Beathard has lately been strengthening his team’s depth.

The most conspicuous two new Redskins are running back George Rogers, 28, the former Heisman Trophy winner who once led the NFL in rushing with the New Orleans Saints, and quarterback Jay Schroeder, 24, of UCLA.

“Rogers gives us outside speed,” Beathard said of Riggins’ new alternate in Coach Joe Gibbs’ one-back offense.

Riggins is stronger but not as versatile.

“Schroeder has all the equipment,” said Beathard, who said that the former Bruin is the team’s future. Even so, he is looking for a more experienced 1985 backup for Theismann.

Schroeder’s edge is a coach, Gibbs, who has designed a delayed rolling pocket from which a passer can more easily see his receivers. The passer loses half the field when rolling out, but gains in avoiding tacklers.

Are exhibition games meaningless? Not to everyone. During a key series Sunday, Plunkett, 37, and Theismann, 36, each ran the ball when he thought he had to. And instead of sliding to a halt, each subjected himself to the tacklers who could have put them out with season-ending injuries.

“You’d have to say these guys are more competitive than prudent,” Cleveland scout Tom Minor said after Plunkett had scrambled eight yards through heavy traffic on third and eight to set up a touchdown. “Competitive fire has made Plunkett what he is.”

Experimenting with instant replay, the NFL twice assisted its referees with calls from the press box during West Coast games last weekend. Both of the upstairs decisions appeared to be correct.

Art McNally, the league’s supervisor of officials, served as the eighth official at all three games--once backing up the referee and once overruling him.

Asked if the NFL can find 14 qualified observers to serve as press box officials next year, McNally said: “We’ll get the people. That isn’t the question. The question is, is it feasible? That’s what we’re working on now.”

It certainly seemed feasible. The unfortunate thing is that the NFL isn’t prepared to begin regular-season instant replay officiating.