PRO FOOTBALL / Week 9 : Raiders Try to Buck History and Broncos : If Form Holds True, Denver Will Win Today at Coliseum for a Sweep of ’86

Welcome back to the rivalry of the 1980s. The Raiders meet the Denver Broncos, John Elway tries not to meet Howie Long and Marc Wilson goes against Joe Collier’s mad-sack defensive line, yearning to get out of it without a visit to his good friend, the X-ray technician.

Also, history meets the home-field advantage. The Raiders may think they have the Broncos right where they want them--in their cross-hairs and in a sold-out Coliseum--but look at it another way.

These are roughly the same circumstances that prevailed a year ago, except in reverse. The Broncos played very well in the first meeting, at the Coliseum, but lost in overtime, 31-28.

Then they had the Raiders coming into sold-out Mile High Stadium. In Denver, the pregame hype suggested a common theme: “We’ve got these buckos right where we want them; the situation is in hand.”

Past Raider horrors were recounted at length and in detail. Retired Broncos came to practice wearing anti-Raider T-shirts. A newspaper ran an editorial cartoon of Lester Hayes, crying to Al Davis about his mistreatment at the hands of Steve Watson.

The Broncos took a 14-0 halftime lead . . . and lost, 17-14. The tears could have washed out the ski season.

Fact: This series has been swept for the last eight years, ever since the NFL went to the 16-game season. It’s the only one of the league’s 52 intra-division rivalries that has never been split during that span.

Fact: If anyone sweeps this season, it won’t be the Silver and Black. On a day the Raiders will not soon forget, the Broncos beat them in the season opener, 38-36, thus avenging the day the Broncos will not soon forget, the 17-14 Raider victory that made the Broncos a non-playoff team with an 11-5 record in 1985.

More facts: Three of the last four meetings went into overtime. . . . The last six were won by the team that trailed at halftime. . . . The last five have been determined by three or fewer points.

As for the games, what more could anyone ask?

Nov. 24, 1985--The Broncos took leads of 7-0, 14-7 and 21-14, but Marcus Allen kept rallying his team. He broke a 61-yarder for a touchdown, picking Karl Mecklenburg off on an official. The Raiders went ahead on a short drive after Chris Bahr recovered his own onside kick. Bahr missed a 40-yard field goal try that would have won it in regulation but got another chance in overtime when Dokie Williams caught a short pass, broke a tackle and turned it into a big gain. Bahr kicked the 32-yarder, and the Raiders won, 31-28.

Dec. 8, 1985--The Broncos took a 14-0 lead and gave Rich Karlis the chance to make it 17-0 with a 35-yard field goal try just before halftime. Karlis missed. The Raiders tied it in the third period. Denver’s venerable Barney Chavous, who was going out alone for coin flips as a tribute to his setting a team record for games played, called it wrong at the start of overtime and sent his team into the teeth of a rising gale. Greg Townsend and Howie Long sacked Elway, producing a fumble and a short field goal by Bahr: Raiders, 17-14. Bronco Coach Dan Reeves called the coin-flip screw-up his worst moment in sports. Ever since, the Broncos repeat their instructions to the coach.

Sept. 7, 1986--The Raiders, peeved at guess who (hint: initials P.R.) for making them open their season in Denver, watched their beleaguered offense and their besieged quarterback play brilliantly and take a 19-7 lead. They had subsequent leads of 22-14, 29-21 and 36-28, but Elway kept rallying his team. He threw two touchdown passes, caught another, and the Broncos won, 38-36. The Raiders have enough horrific memories--Ken Woodard stripping Allen and running it in for a touchdown, Napoleon McCallum fumbling on a kickoff to set up the winning score, Dokie Williams fumbling deep in Denver territory late--to last a season. But the one they can’t forget is the interference call in the end zone on Stacey Toran that gave the Broncos a touchdown. Two weeks later, when they were 0-3 and people were making jokes about them being in the running for Vinny Testaverde, they were so miserable they could barely remember specific causes.

But they remember where it all started.

OK, the matchups:

Raider defense vs. Bronco offense--Lester Hayes has already compared John Elway and his powerful right arm to Goose Gossage, Dwight Gooden and Roger Clemens. Who’s next? No, not Calvin Schiraldi.

In the first game, the Raiders camped out in the Bronco backfield, but they got Elway only twice. Elway is remarkably elusive for a man listed at 6-3, 212. The Raiders suspect he is more like 6-3, 220. He’s strong, too, so an arm tackle won’t get him.

“A pumped-up 220,” Hayes said. “Without a doubt, John is on some kind of weightlifting program. He makes throws you don’t see. I think John’s stronger than that guy Jay Schroeder (of Washington), and that’s saying something. You look at Jay Schroeder, you think he’s a linebacker. With John, on the entire field, there’s no place of safety.”

The Bronco offensive line, however, is modest physically, and the backs are OK to ordinary. It takes all of Elway’s agility and Dan Reeves’ brains, but the Broncos absorb relatively few sacks.

The Raiders, warned 1,000 times to stay in their rush lanes and to contain Elway, think maybe they were too cautious in Denver. What the heck, they’ve got to think something.

“Well, we were concerned with contain quite a bit,” Howie Long said. “We were probably over-cautious. He’s going to break contain anyway. You just have to hustle.”

The Broncos are running the ball better than they did last season, when Elway was forced to throw 605 passes. Running it against the Raiders is something else. The Denver rushing totals in their last two meetings were 87 and 55 yards.

How do you overcome domination like that? Try the occasional gadget plays--those double reverses with the pitch back to the quarterback, who completes a pass to someone 60 yards downfield.

Reeves almost apologizes for them, but the points come in so handy.

“Of course, you’d like to line up with two backs and take people on,” Reeves said. “Be very physical like the Green Bay Packers used to do. Say, ‘Here we come, stop us.’

“We realize we’re not that type of offense. We have to do everything we can to try to take advantage of the people we’ve got.”

In the first meeting this season, Elway burned the Raiders by catching a touchdown pass from halfback Steve Sewell.

How much do the Raiders respect the Broncos? Enough that you never hear them characterizing the gadgets in more Raider-like terms, such as “M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E.”

Of course, the season series is only half over.

Raider offense vs. Bronco defense: The Broncos keep telling everyone that their NFL-high 34 sacks doesn’t come from a lot of blitzing. But to the Raiders, the film shows a certain Chicago Bears look, with lots of people on the line of scrimmage, producing a lot of confusion about who is blocking whom, and a lot of their best people “singled up”--blocked by only one man.

Or as Reeves said of the set that puts end Rulon Jones (11 1/2 sacks) and linebacker Karl Mecklenburg (6 1/2) together: “You can’t double-team both of them when they’re playing side by side.”

The Raiders had a lot of trouble picking up blitzes early in the season. Wilson was knocked out of the third game, returned in the fourth and was sacked eight times by the San Diego Chargers. By then, the 19 sacks the Raiders had taken were the worst in the NFL. If they aren’t beyond that, they’d better send out for a new quarterback, or maybe a half-dozen of them.

The Raider all Denver fears is Allen, with reason: 102 yards rushing, 102 yards on receptions and 2 touchdowns in the last game; 135-21-1 in the one before that; 173-49-1 in the one before that. That’s 420 yards rushing, 172 receiving and 24 points’ worth of reasons.

But what kind of shape is Allen in? He started practicing again last week, but cautiously, on the sprained right ankle that is healing so slowly. The team sent him back for every test known to medical science. It’s still a sprain and it still isn’t all better.

Raider Notes

The Raiders swept both games in 1979, ‘80, ’83 and ‘85, the Broncos in 1978, ’81 and ’84. In 1982, the strike season, there was one game, won here by the Raiders. . . . Marcus Allen, Mike Haynes and Howie Long are all listed as probable. Haynes, like Allen, returned to practice last week, but Long, who has a hamstring strain, was held out of drills. Late in the week, Coach Tom Flores said Long was the most “iffy” of the trio but he’s still expected to play. . . . Kicking games: The Raiders’ Chris Bahr is 12 for 14 on field goals. Rich Karlis, pilloried in Denver last season when he went 23 for 38, is 8 for 11. . . . The Raiders activated defensive end Mike Wise from the injured-reserve list. To make room for Wise, tight end Earl Cooper was waived.