Latest Raider Loss May Be Most Devastating : Ankle Injury Will Keep Allen on the Sideline Today Against Chargers
The Raiders have an answer to the question, “Can anything else go wrong that could go wrong?”
It’s yes. The franchise, Marcus Allen, is sitting out today’s game against the Chargers.
To see if further calamity is possible, tune in at game time. The Raiders have been installed as four-point favorites, but that was when everyone thought Allen would be galloping to the rescue.
“We’re counting on Marcus Allen playing,” Charger Coach Don Coryell said in midweek. “Knowing Marcus, he’s had my vote for several years as the outstanding player in the league, and one of the reasons is he’s so tough. I don’t know, has he ever missed a game? (One?) I don’t remember that one. It certainly wasn’t against us.”
But Allen’s right ankle, sprained against the Giants last Sunday, never responded. He didn’t practice at all and didn’t even put on sweat clothes for Saturday’s light drill.
“I’m not playing,” he said.
“He’s out,” Coach Tom Flores said. “Unfortunately.”
And the new starter? Vance Mueller, the rookie from Division III, who has been impressive but is very inexperienced.
Is it already too late?
The Raiders are 0-3. Denver and Seattle, their chief AFC West rivals, are both 3-0. This being the time of year for magic numbers, the Seahawks and Broncos will be heartened to hear that any combination of 11 of their victories and Raider losses will guarantee that their old friends can’t catch them.
And the Raiders have a schedule that won’t let them ease up. They still have dates remaining in Dallas and Miami, not to mention those perennial favorites, the Kingdome and Jack Murphy Stadium.
That’s four more games in which they’ll probably be underdogs. Seven losses do not figure to guarantee anyone a wild-card berth.
And what happens if the Raiders neglect to emerge victorious today?
Next week, they’re at Kansas City. Would they be favored there? Not on your silver and black hard hat. A week later, it’s Seattle at the Coliseum. The week after that, the Raiders are at Miami. One way of looking at it is that if they lose today, they’re in the running for Vinny Testaverde.
This looks like a job for the Charger defense:
Raider problems to this point could be encapsulated in two words-- offensive unit . It hasn’t scored a touchdown in two games, even if both of them were against big, bruising, blitzing defenses.
The closest the Chargers come to playing defense like that is in their dreams. They have their third defensive coordinator in three seasons, Ron Lynn succeeding Dave Adolph, who succeeded Tom Bass. Jack Pardee lasted longer but didn’t accomplish much more.
Lynn ran the Oakland Invaders’ defense under Charlie Sumner, an ex-Raider coach. Charger owner Alex Spanos, the old Al Davis admirer, wanted Sumner, but Sumner reportedly thought he was in line for a head coaching job and turned him down.
So, the Chargers hired Lynn and did a philosophic 180 turn--from the zones and bend-don’t-break of Adolph and Bass to blitzing, attacking and man-to-man in the secondary.
The only problem is they’re still importing defensive backs by the truckload. Coach Don Coryell was asked last week if that meant they’d been unable to find the kinds of players they wanted.
“Well, yes,” Coryell said.
And Coryell on the switch in styles:
“We’ve changed it (the defense) around quite a bit. Statistically and pointwise, we haven’t changed it that much.”
Wayne Davis and Donald Brown start at the corners, but it might not pay to memorize those names. Redskin wide receivers Art Monk and Gary Clark combined for 13 catches and 318 yards against them last week, and that’s not a great omen.
The Raider wide receivers have caught nine passes this season. Dokie Williams, who has five, might have done better, but they haven’t gone to him much, preferring to try Rod Barksdale and Jesse Hester on the other side, either to help establish them, or to strike deep against one-on-one coverage.
Hester and Barksdale have caught four passes between them and have more drops than that. Both can run like the wind, but young receivers often take time to settle in. Cliff Branch needed several seasons before he started hanging on to the ball often enough to play.
But when you have a schedule full of trouble, an offense that is struggling and a quarterback under the gun, infant wideouts can be one more problem than you can handle.
Duel of the titans: Charger offense vs. Raider defense.
No Raider could have forgotten last season’s fireworks show at San Diego, where the Chargers got 593 yards against them, the most they’ve ever allowed, and won, 40-34, in overtime. Dan Fouts passed for 436 yards, and Raider Lester Hayes called halfback Gary Anderson, “The second coming of Gale Sayers.”
That was the 10th week of the season. The Chargers went on to score 35 points (in a loss to the Oilers), 40 (in a win over the Bills), 54 (in a win over the Steelers, but by only 10 points) and 34 in a season-ending loss to Kansas City.
They then served notice that they were back in this season’s opener, torching the Dolphins, 50-28. But next they ran into a Giant nutcracker, where Fouts was intercepted five times.
A week ago, they led the Redskins, 21-3, but then, with contender status staring them in the face, they buckled. Jay Schroeder marched the Redskins 69 yards, a drive that started with 2:00 left in the game and ended, 3 plays and 44 seconds later, on a scoring pass to Clark.
The Raider defense? In these hard times, it remains a bastion of strength.
“I’m just watching the defensive film,” Fouts said last week. “They don’t look like an 0-3 team on the defensive side.”
In the standings, they do, though. There’s the rub.