Raiders-Redskins: Heavy Hitters Have Long Memories

Baseball may be 70% pitching, but football definitely is 70% hitting. That’s why, in the NFL, a long memory is a requisite for survival. In the trenches, where every coach swears every game is won, an ounce of revenge in the heart is worth a pound of strategy in the head.

If you loathe and despise the gentleman crouched before you; if you wish to hurt not only all 275 handsome pounds of him, but his ancestors and his progeny as well, then you’re a blessed man, because you’re already halfway to victory.

Cornerbacks and flankers study game films of one another, looking for tiny missteps. Linemen try to remember: What did this unredeemably vile individual say about me last time we played?

Last time the Los Angeles Raiders and the Washington Redskins met prior to last Sunday’s game (for real), the Raiders had a great deal to say in the wake of their 38-9 victory in Super Bowl XVIII.

Howie Long said he’d never eaten hog before, but it tasted good. Even before that game, the Raiders’ defensive front wall nicknamed themselves The Slaughterhouse Seven--another slur to Hogs everywhere. In the afterglow of the carnage in Tampa, Raider linebacker Matt Millen bragged that he and other squatty-body Raiders such as Lyle Alzado were “The Refrigerators” because they were short, wide and immovable.

In RFK Stadium last Sunday, the Redskins extracted a 10-6 victory that could be entitled Revenge of the Herds.

“It doesn’t drift out of your mind, not even after a couple of years,” said Redskins linebacker Rich Milot, who remembers how the Raiders ran for 231 yards--the most against a Joe Gibbs-coached team. “Some guys may be different. Some may forget. But I didn’t. That was the most discouraging defeat we ever had. It was probably the only time we were ever badly beaten at the line (of scrimmage). They were takin’ it to us that whole game.”

If any Redskin had forgotten, Head Hog Russ Grimm refreshed their memories Sunday just before kickoff. Dave Butz recalls the speech: “Russ said, ‘We’ve heard about what they did to us ever since the Super Bowl. Some (of them) have rubbed it in us and some haven’t. We owe them something like what they gave us.’ ”

One incident typified this day, when the largest Redskins finally squared some of their personal line-of-scrimmage accounts with the largest Raiders. In the fourth quarter, Mark May, a dainty 295-pound Redskin tackle, stood at the goal line, directly above the supine Raiders’ Long, who appeared to be searching for truffles. A split second before, Washington’s George Rogers had pounded over the goal line.

May wound up his right arm, like a man leading a cheer, then dramatically pointed his index finger right at the No. 75 on Long’s back. See, said the gesture, we ran the game-winning play directly over the forehead, back and buttocks of Mr. Long.

In a sense, the NFL is like a huge, dangerous, simmering lodge where nobody looks at anybody cross-eyed or says any of those words that don’t get forgotten.

“Why do you think you see so many bland interviews in this league?” said Butz. “Everything is filed away. You want to say, ‘I killed him’ or ‘I had a pigeon,’ but there’s always a next time. You can’t give anybody a little edge, because the winner is usually the one who has the biggest little edge.”

In Super Bowl XVIII, the Raiders outrushed the Redskins, 231-90, with Marcus Allen gaining 191 yards, John Riggins 64. Los Angeles also had six sacks to two for the Redskins and, as Butz recalled, “I don’t think we really got a hit on their quarterback all day.”

All that changed last Sunday. The Redskins led in total offense, 271 yards to 266, and had a 5-4 sack edge. Okay, not much. But a victory. The Redskins had three interceptions and left quarterback Marc Wilson with a bruise the size of a golf ball on the back of his left hand and red welts and abrasions all over his back.

“I was glad to read that he said he’d been hit quite a few times,” said Butz.

“We were more impressed with Marcus Allen this time,” said Milot. “He got less yards (104), but he had much less room to run than in the Super Bowl. We had him hemmed in constantly and he made a lot of our guys miss.”

While the Hogs fought to a standoff this time, the Redskins’ defensive line emerged a clear winner. What May did to Long was nothing compared to the new creation that defensive end Dexter Manley unveiled to humiliate Raiders tackle Bruce Davis--call it The Holding Dance.

The NFL has outlawed sack dancing by defenders over a fallen quarterback. But they left a loophole. Manley found it. When Davis, lying on the ground, was called for holding, Manley stood over him and did a sack dance in honor of the 10-yard penalty.

“It was the same as a sack,” said Manley, “so I did my dance.

“We had some deep scars from that Super Bowl. We had a chance to get revenge.”

Of course, the day may come when May and Manley will have to meet Long and Davis again. But the future always seems safely remote.