Raiders Near a Sellout for Bronco Game : With 87,000 Tickets Already Sold, Game Could Be on Local TV

OK, now for Raidermania. They’ve already sold 87,000 tickets for Sunday’s game against the Denver Broncos at the Coliseum and hope to sell out today, which would allow the game to be shown on local television.

The Raiders may have struggled, but their attendance has held up. The team that averaged 52,597 in 1983, the season they won the Super Bowl, and 70,023 the year after, is running just below the franchise record of 70,306 set last season. However, counting the seats already sold for the Denver game, they’re 10,000 ahead of the 1985 pace.

After an 0-2 start on the road, the Raiders drew 71,164 for the New York Giants, a Raider record for a home opener. They were 0-3 when they got 63,153 for the game against the San Diego Chargers.

They were 1-3 when they attracted 70,635 for the Seattle Seahawks game. That was the same Sunday the Angels played Boston in Game 5 of the American League playoffs and the Rams played at Atlanta, both televised locally.

John Elway is coming, so the Raider defensive line will be expected to chase him all over the lot. That’s what it has done recently, though with little to show for it but raised heart rates and defensive statistics.

Sunday, they’ll try something else--keepaway.

In their wins at Miami and Houston, the Raiders have had times of possession of 37:21 and 36:30, the result of all that running straight ahead.

With Marcus Allen missing three of the last four games and rookie Napoleon McCallum starting, they haven’t gained huge yardage (aside from the 214 yards in Miami) but they’ve controlled the ball. In their winning streak, they’ve had 33, 32, 35, 43 and 32 rushes.

The Broncos have a beautifully coordinated defense, and a tough one, but it’s not huge, or even big. Allen got 102 yards on them in that never-to-be-forgotten opener.

After that, however, the Broncos strung together games of 30, 77, 40, 41 and 42 yards that lifted them to No. 1 in the NFL against the rush. This is amazing since they’re supposed to be bend-don’t-break guys, rather than dominators.

On the other hand, maybe their schedule helped. During that five-game stretch, the Broncos were merely playing the Pittsburgh Steelers, who looked then as if they had just taken up the game; the Philadelphia Eagles; the New England Patriots, who were supposed to have a strong ground game but were already struggling, the Dallas Cowboys, who were supposed to have a good ground game but were without Tony Dorsett and Danny White, and the San Diego Chargers.

In the last two weeks, against better running teams, the Denver totals began climbing. The New York Jets rushed for 137 yards in 44 carries in their 22-10 victory. The Seattle Seahawks gained 164 in 30 carries in the 20-13 Bronco win Sunday.

Said Raider fullback Frank Hawkins after the Bronco-Jet game: “I don’t think that’s going to be very healthy for Denver because two tight ends and three tight ends (the Jet formations) just took it to them.”

The Raiders have also been known to use two tight ends.

Raider Notes Only one Raider regular-season game in Los Angeles has sold out early enough to be televised locally, last season’s game against the San Francisco 49ers. . . . Raider Coach Tom Flores said he doesn’t know about the prospects for Sunday of running back Marcus Allen and cornerback Mike Haynes, who sat out the Houston game with ankle injuries. He thinks that linebacker Rod Martin can go with his dislocated finger and that defensive end Howie Long, who had a tight hamstring, will be OK, though he’ll practice carefully. All will probably be listed as probable. Probable against the Broncos is different than probable against the Houston Oilers . . . Then there’s pass protection. The Broncos are the NFL’s top sacking team, another departure for them. They have 34 sacks, with defensive end Rulon Jones’ 11 1/2 leading the NFL. The Raiders have given up 29.