For Raiders, the Lining Isn’t Silver : Will Davis Clean House for ’87 With a Broom or a Torch?

Uneasy sit 45 Raider heads, whose owners have been sent on holiday early to dream unfestive thoughts. Next year in Indianapolis? Buffalo? Tampa Bay?

In silver and blackdom, as Lester Hayes announces in losing streaks, the focal point is keeping Coach Davis happy. An unhappy Al Davis is capable of a housecleaning that goes all the way to the storm cellar and dispenses with even long-time favorites. Everyone has to hit the waiver wire one day, and there’s no time like a down time.

Take 1978, John Madden’s last season as coach, two seasons after his Super Bowl victory. The Raiders started 8-4, finished 9-7 and missed the playoffs.

Sound familiar? All the Raiders had to do was beat the Colts last week to duplicate it.

Gone by the ’79 opener were Willie Brown, the Hall of Fame cornerback, whom Davis kept on as a coach; Fred Biletnikoff, the great pass receiver; Skip (Dr. Death) Thomas, who’d started on the other corner for half of the ‘70s, and Pete Banaszak, the venerable short-yardage expert.

A year later, they went 9-7 again under Tom Flores. That ended the Raider careers of Ken Stabler, Jack Tatum, Phil Villapiano and Otis Sistrunk.

A year after that, they won the Super Bowl. It’s not as easy as that, but right now that particular lesson of history is all that makes sense of Raider lives.

So what’s on Coach Davis’ mind?

Approached after last Sunday’s game and asked about the possibility of an interview in the coming week, or ever, Davis demurs. He embarks on the customary review of the reporter’s treatment of the Raiders (deemed wholly negative), posture toward same (malicious), knowledge of Raider history (inadequate) and his publication’s stance since the move from Oakland (perceived to be hostile).

Davis adds that he has just been talking to the top man of the reporter’s paper “but I didn’t say anything about you.”

The reporter takes this as a “no.”

OK, first lesson: Davis may vote 51% of the stock in each and every Raider decision, but he doesn’t like being pinned down.

He swims in an aura of mystery and seems to prefer it that way, floating through traffic with a constant air of detachment that suggests his mind is hundreds of miles away and he can’t quite focus on you. One gets the message: He doesn’t want to be bothered right now. Even among the small cadre of ultra-loyalists that comprises his front office, there is a standing joke that AD, this personage that they fear and revere, doesn’t . . . quite . . . know . . . their . . . names.

The press is handled delicately. Davis carefully controls the conditions under which he will speak. He prefers talking to confidantes (new people are let in but often after Raider officials call around, checking to see if this newcomer is a good guy or otherwise) and then usually on a not-for-attribution basis.

Everyone else is in for a long ride. Take the day of the USFL decision, when mini-cam crews descended on the Raider camp at Oxnard for his reaction, Davis having testified against his partners and for the new league.

Davis was on his lonely vigil as usual, standing by himself at the end of the practice field. The crews, perhaps 15 men bristling with cameras and battery packs and stick microphones, who’d been told the ground rules, kept a respectful distance. When practice ended, Davis strolled right past them, looking preoccupied with something else.

“Al,” called Tony Hernandez of Channel 2, “can we get a ‘no-comment’ ?”

Davis gave a little backhand wave and kept walking.

A day later, John Madden, who was making his annual visit to camp, was asked if Davis affects that air just to keep the press off him.

Said Madden, grinning: “Did you see that the other day?”

Most likely, it’s not an affectation. For a man with so much rebel in him, whose ambition is such that nothing short of domination will do, Davis is reclusive and in company, seems shy. His world seems divided into two groups: 1) trusted aides and confidantes; long-time friends such as Sam Bercovitz, a kindly, fatherly man from Oakland who flies to every Raider game, accompanies Davis onto the field beforehand and sits next to him during them; Raider players, past and present; and 2) everyone else. He lives with 1, views 2 with suspicion.

And even those closest to him know how much room he demands. Madden, for example, calls Davis “one of my best friends” and says, “I just know if I ever needed anything and I had one phone call, I’d call Al Davis.”

Madden, however, was watching practice that day, 50 yards away from Davis, who was back on station at the end of the field, staring intently at every moment of the drill. With Davis, even best friends don’t intrude.

At away games, Davis often sits in the press box, where his moans and curses echo up and down the rows. Do painters in garrets suffer for their art? So does Davis and therefore, too, his employees, civilian and uniformed.

This is one of the keys to the Raiders: If they have to do all this suffering, if they get snapped at and snap at each other, they see nothing wrong with sharing it with the outside world. If they have to endure this living hell, tiptoeing a tightrope between triumph and tragedy, why shouldn’t everyone around them?

Of course, there is always the day after and the return of sweet reason.

“Because of the emotions involved in making decisions, you’ve got to cool down, subside a little bit” Flores says.

He smiled.

“Because if you went on emotion alone, at some point in time, you’d probably have no one here. “

Anyway, Davis is said to be smoldering at several key players.

So what happened?

It’s difficult to avoid repeating history’s mistakes if you can’t figure out what they were in the first place.

Have the Raiders gone Hollywood?

The players hate the question, but it started with Davis. He began talking about the corrosive effects of “the environment” after the ’84 season, the unsuccessful Super Bowl defense of a squad whose greatness, Davis had proclaimed on the victory stand next to Pete Rozelle, lay in its future.

However:

In the three most celebrated American sports, professional football, baseball and basketball, no one from anywhere has repeated recently. You have to go back to the ’80 Steelers, the ’78 Yankees and the ’69 Celtics in each sport for the last back-to-back champions.

It could also be argued that this environment is as much an asset as detriment. Players often ask to be traded to the Raiders and some, like Mike Haynes, help make it happen. Also, the tendency of the local fans to melt away if they’re offered anything but the best keeps the owners on notice.

Guest shots on Johnny Carson notwithstanding, there have been five Los Angeles champions in the ‘80s (Lakers ‘80-2-5, Dodgers ‘81, Raiders ‘84). Boston has three. San Francisco and Philadelphia have two each. Nine cities are tied at one.

“It’s a lot different than it is in most cities,” Flores says, “just by the nature of Los Angeles, itself, how big it is, the attention professional teams get down here.

“But you look at distractions: New York City has a lot of distractions, but no one says anything about the Giants. The Bears have distractions, and no one says much about them because they’re in the playoffs.

“If anyone had distractions, in 1982 (the year of the franchise shift, when they went 8-1), we traveled to every game in a plane and then went back to Oakland. In 1983, most of us were living in hotels with our families back in the Bay Area and we won a Super Bowl. No one ever thinks of those things when you win.”

Actually, attitude-as-the-problem would be a relatively minor concern. A little shake-up would probably get everyone’s attention.

But what if it was something more fundamental?

Teams seem to change almost by the week. After 12 of them this season, this seemed to be a vintage Raider squad: some youth, a lot of age, some anger at the NFL office (the early schedule that helped them to an 0-3 start, the Greg Townsend affair) a rally, an 8-4 record with three of the final four games at home.

Then the trouble set in with a vengeance:

Nov. 30--A 33-27 loss to the 3-9 Philadelphia Eagles after failing to hold three different leads. Marcus Allen fumbles at the Eagle 16 in overtime, and Andre Waters runs it back almost the length of the field. Allen’s instincts are questioned, but that’s classic second-guessing. No one said anything about his instincts the week before when he dragged half the Charger secondary into the end zone in overtime.

Flores gets heat for not letting Chris Bahr kick from the 16. Raider broadcaster Bill King is in the process of telling listeners how such a tactic backfired two years ago against the Broncos when-- whoa!-- Allen fumbles.

The larger question is why it ever came down to that. The Raider secondary gives up three touchdown passes to Mike Quick. The Raider offensive line allows six sacks, and the rushing game totals out at 61 yards.

Says Todd Christensen: “Maybe after a win on national television (at San Diego) and 10 days off, we lost our concentration a little.”

Maybe?

Dec. 8--The 37-0 Monday night massacre at Seattle, then considered the ultimate in Raider humiliation. The Kingdome crowd helps. The Raider tackles say they can’t hear the snap count and since they’re on the slow side, they need to be off the ball before their opponents.

The line is overrun, and the secondary gets shot up again. But this isn’t the upset it’s cracked up to be. The Raiders, noted little-game cruisers, have put themselves under the gun by losing to the Eagles.

They had almost accomplished the same thing a week earlier, blowing a 31-10 lead in San Diego before pulling it out in overtime.

Dec. 14--The gun goes off: Chiefs 20-17. Allen, who seems to have lost the thread, fumbles twice within the first three times he touches the ball and the Chiefs have two short drives for a 10-0 lead. Then they put together a long one for 17-0. The Raiders rally, but Napoleon McCallum fumbles at the Kansas City 16 late in the game. Jim Plunkett throws four interceptions. All they have left to play for is pride.

Dec. 21--Colts 30, Raiders 24. The ultimate indignity, pending scheduling a high school team.

It didn’t have to be that way, but then they had been flirting with disaster long enough. They didn’t have to be 8-4, either. That first-half deficit at Dallas would have been 24-3 if two Cowboy touchdowns hadn’t been called back.

And ominously for the Raiders, there were common breakdowns: the offensive line, a problem for the better part of three seasons, couldn’t pass protect or generate a running game; the secondary, a traditional tower of strength, started to leak big plays.

And, with Jim Plunkett’s attempt to ride to the rescue over, there is the big one: Who’s the quarterback of the future?

Whatever else this season was, it was Marc Wilson’s last chance here. The deck may have been stacked against him, the system may be in need of redesign (What’s Don Coryell doing these days? Sid Gilman?), and it may not have been a fair test, but that was the situation and Wilson couldn’t cut it. The Raiders now seem set on trading him and saving themselves as much of the $1.1 million due him as possible.

The choice is now down to the 39-year-old Plunkett or the very young Rusty Hilger. Hilger reaped a publicity windfall in the Colt game. Has everyone forgotten that it was only six weeks ago that they were holding welcome-back parties for Plunkett? Even a Raider official cautioned against getting carried away by a late drive against a prevent defense.

Plunkett, 39, is dying to be asked back and is afraid he won’t be. A couple of weeks ago, he was asked if he takes it season by season.

“No,” he said laughing. “Week by week.”

Are there possibilities elsewhere?

The Raiders plummeted in the Vinny Testaverde sweepstakes when the choice passed from the Colts, whose owner, Bob Irsay, was once set to trade them John Elway, to Tampa Bay, whose owner, Hugh Culverhouse is not only an establishment NFL type, but close to the Rams’ Georgia Frontiere.

This doesn’t mean that the Raiders may not try.

Are there other less glamorous possibilities? Neil Lomax? Warren Moon?

However it turns out, it looks like there could be a young Raider quarterback, which will put a premium on having some island of stability around. Plunkett may get his option picked up.

And now for the other units:

Offensive line--They’ve already started rebuilding, or realigning. Henry (Killer) Lawrence, 35, lost his right tackle spot to Shelby Jordan, 34, after the Seattle game. Jordan was once well-thought of, and the Raiders are hoping that two years of being on the bench and not getting beaten up has helped him save something.

Chris Riehm may have taken Charley Hannah’s left guard spot. Hannah is a good technician, rather than an overpowering type, but he had a fine ’85 season. This season, however, Hannah held out through camp, and the Raiders think he never caught up.

Amazingly, Mickey Marvin may get another season at right guard. The least talented of the Raider starters, he stays in on heart and this season finished No. 2 to center Don Mosebar in the players’ voting for best offensive lineman.

Younger Raiders lobby for Curt Marsh, who was given the No. 1 job in training camp but lost it once more through injury. There was a report that Marsh was kept off the active roster all season to keep him from realizing a contract bonus, but Davis is said to have grown impatient with Marsh’s bad luck. You might argue that a team in need of young offensive linemen should think twice about dumping so imposing a prospect. Davis may argue he’s already thought twice.

The Raiders seem to be warming up a spot for rookie Bill Lewis, the No. 7 draft pick. He may get a shot at left tackle. Or, he may get a shot at center with Mosebar moving to tackle.

Secondary--The Raiders are concerned with their cornerbacks, heretofore foundations of the team, if increasingly embattled ones. This season’s, Mike Haynes and Lester Hayes, were 33 and 31.

However, corners of their caliber don’t grow on trees. Haynes has gotten a lot of heat for someone who’s made the Pro Bowl 9 times in 11 years, including the last 4. Hayes has taken a lot of heat, period.

In fact, Haynes, who was all but unbeatable in his first two seasons here, is no longer invulnerable.

Hayes played well for the first half of the season but struggled in his last three games. He said later he had been getting shot up weekly for a hamstring pull and then a foot injury. He wound up breaking a bone in his numbed foot in Seattle.

They are expected to be back, and the Raiders will try to help them more. That process has already started, too. This year, the percentage of zone coverage is said to have gone up again, from the old 25% to about 40%.

A lot of veteran Raiders are sure to become ex-Raiders. Davis dotes on Cliff Branch, the star wide receiver he carried on injured reserve for two seasons at full salary. But how far can largess extend?

Will Mike Davis get a shot at his old strong safety spot? Almost certainly not. The staff is happy with Stacey Toran.

What rumors will come true, what surprises await?

The moving finger hasn’t started writing yet, but it’s in the bullpen, warming up.