Analysis : Raider Offense Couldn’t Overcome Its Mistakes

Eric Dickerson’s big game Saturday changed the whole look of the playoffs on a weekend when the Raiders dropped out because they didn’t have enough offense to overcome their mistakes.

There are two reasons to believe the Rams can upset the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field next week:

--The way their defense played while shutting out Dallas Saturday, 20-0, the Rams have what it takes to contain Walter Payton, Jim McMahon and the rest of the Chicago offense.

--Now that Dickerson is 100% again physically for the first time since he pulled a hamstring muscle in September, the Bears can’t indefinitely contain him.

When the Rams have the ball, Chicago will shut him down most of the time, perhaps. But if he carries 30 times, Dickerson will break through at least twice. And that could be enough to set up the winning points in a low-scoring game.

In the other conference this week, the AFC East emerged as the league’s dominant division when the Miami Dolphins came from behind to beat Cleveland Saturday, 24-21, and when the New England Patriots outlasted the Raiders before 88,936 on a rainy day at the Coliseum Sunday, 27-20.

The wild-card Patriots are probably a better football team than division champion Miami. Certainly they are better balanced. They play the game with a first-class defense and an accurate passer, Tony Eason, plus a running back who can gain 100 yards--104, actually--against the Raider defense, Craig James.

The Patriots, though, have lost 18 straight at the Orange Bowl, where they haven’t outscored Miami since 1966, the year before the first Super Bowl.

The jinx and a quarterback named Dan Marino could make it hard for the young New England team to prove that it belongs in the 20th Super Bowl with either the Rams or Bears.

As for the Raiders, they’re clearly too weak offensively this year to beat a good, sound team like New England unless they’re playing mistake-free football.

To analyze their errors:

--Of Marc Wilson’s three interceptions, only one was his mistake.

--Of the three fumbles by Fulton Walker, Marcus Allen and Sam Seale, only Seale’s was inexcusable.

--And of the two penalties that killed the Raiders in the second half--one by Bruce Davis ending a promising third-quarter drive and one by Mickey Marvin ruining their last drive in the last minute--no final judgments can be made before the film review.

But this much can be said of these eight blunders as a package: The Raiders with Wilson at quarterback couldn’t surmount all that.

In football, it isn’t true that a fumble is a fumble. The nature of the game is that sometimes the ball is going to be misplaced.

A pro, however, should never fumble a kickoff, and it was one of those that cost the Raiders the game. Technically, Seale muffed it when the ball came down, and, although he regained possession, his error obviously unnerved him. When he dropped the football again, New England covered it in the end zone in the third quarter for the last and winning touchdown.

Seale’s problem was that he didn’t make sure he had the ball put away when he regained it after the muff. The first rule of football in that situation is to protect the football--even if your offense has to take it on the five-yard line.

Better the five than not at all.

The fumbles by Allen and Walker were of a different character. It was Walker who fumbled a punt to set up New England’s first easy touchdown, but a punt can be hard to handle. Whereas kickoffs fall true, spinning punts often don’t. This one didn’t.

Walker has proved that he isn’t a fumbler and, this year, so has Allen. Sunday’s was only Allen’s fourth fumble of the season, and this time he was stripped, which can happen to any dervish-type halfback on a crowded scrimmage play.

Unhappily for Allen, who played another big game on a 121-yard afternoon, his fumble gave New England possession at the start of a 54-yard field-goal drive.

The Raiders could have survived their three fumbles, possibly, but not in a game in which they also threw three interceptions.

Clinically, nonetheless, this was a game which demonstrated that the responsibility for NFL interceptions is frequently not only that of the passer.

The only interception Wilson should have to answer for this morning was the last one. That time Allen was open, and Wilson wasn’t being unduly harried when he threw the ball high and beyond the receiver. When Allen could only slap at it, the pass was deflected for a killing interception.

By contrast, the two interceptions Wilson threw in the first half should be charged not to him but to the Raider organization. He threw the ball well enough both times.

Both were caught by a New England cornerback, Ronnie Lippett, who was covering Raider right end Dokie Williams.

Lippett was beating the design of the Raider offense. As the pattern developed, he waited until Williams made his break, then moved in and got it before it got to Williams.

In this game, most of the time, Lippett was playing along the sideline, outside Williams. This isn’t standard procedure for NFL cornerbacks, who, covering a sprinter as fast as Williams, must normally guard against different kinds of moves--outside, at times, as well as inside slants. But the Raiders don’t believe in slant patterns. Taking advantage of this fact, Lippett simply waited for Williams’ outside cuts.

Or to put it another way, Lippett was soundly coached. The man who told him what to do was and is New England’s defensive coordinator, Rod Rust.

The penalties against tackle Bruce Davis and guard Mickey Marvin, taken as a pair, were the most damaging the Raiders have suffered this season.

At the start of the second half, a magnificent Raider drive had carried from the 15-yard line to the Patriot 40 when Davis was flagged for holding.

That made it first and 20 for Wilson, a quarterback who doesn’t easily overcome first and 20. The Raiders in this crisis absurdly called two timeouts before Wilson was sacked to lose everything.

In final two minutes, the slow-moving Raider offense was moving slowly toward what might have been the tying touchdown--and had sprung Allen on a fourth-down play for 24 yards to midfield--when Marvin was flagged for not only holding but holding a Patriot’s face mask.

Conforming to the Raiders’ long tradition, the officials termed it unsportsmanlike conduct. But it was worse than that. There went their last chance.