Pro Football / Bob Oates : Wild-Card Teams May Hold All the Aces

It won’t be an upset if there’s an all-wild card Super Bowl this winter for the first time since the pro leagues merged 17 years ago.

On the first weekend of the playoffs, the Minnesota Vikings and Houston Oilers both showed they should be ranked alongside any of the six other contending teams.

In fact, both wild-card winners appeared to have recruited more talented players than any potential playoff opponent.

This has never been true before. In other years, the wild cards have almost always been in over their heads--one of them anyway, and frequently both.

But in Minneapolis Monday, the Vikings clearly had too much talent for the Rams, winning easily against a well-prepared team, 28-17.

And in Cleveland Saturday, although the Oilers didn’t play well when they were ahead, they outclassed the Browns in every crisis, 24-23.

One way to measure talent on a football field is simply to observe what it accomplishes when a big game is on the line.

And by this test, the Vikings and Oilers both won the same way.

In the crunch of the second half, two of the season’s finest quarterbacks, Minnesota’s Wade Wilson and Houston’s Warren Moon, led their teams on long, decisive, nearly errorless drives.

In football, good coaching often nullifies talent. But you can’t count on it.

The playoffs have been deliberately structured to make it difficult for wild cards to win, and this will be evident again next weekend when the Vikings must play at San Francisco and the Oilers at Buffalo.

The 49ers and Bills each have the edge--but the Vikings and Oilers each have a chance for these reasons:

--This will be the Oilers’ third straight appearance in the cold weather. They should be getting used to it.

--The Vikings probably have more talent, on both sides of the ball, than the 49ers.

Of the two other games on the long weekend, the most interesting brings the Philadelphia Eagles to Chicago--Eagle Coach Buddy Ryan against Bear Coach Mike Ditka. Not long ago, Ditka and Ryan were on the same side when the Bears won a Super Bowl.

Reportedly, they didn’t get along any better then than they do now.

It will take Eagle quarterback Randall Cunningham’s best game to win it.

In Cincinnati, it will take the Seattle Seahawks’ best game to oust the Bengals.

As a rule, Minnesota’s receivers were open Monday when Wilson was throwing the ball.

When quarterback Jim Everett was throwing it for the Rams, his receivers were, in general, closely covered.

And in the end, that was the difference.

The Vikings play defense with half of this year’s National Conference Pro Bowl secondary--Joey Browner at safety and Carl Lee at cornerback--and, most of the time, Everett’s receivers couldn’t get out of their clutches.

So after Minnesota led at the turn, 14-7, Wilson had nothing to fear if he could keep a couple of drives going in the second half. He could, and did.

On his first series of the third quarter, after the Vikings reached midfield, they asked him to throw seven straight passes. This is the same as saying, “We don’t think we can run, Wilson. We’re putting the game up to you.”

Accepting the challenge, he completed 3 of 7, advancing the Vikings to the Ram 9-yard line, where a cleverly called draw play set up the 21-7 touchdown.

Again, on his next big drive, Wilson threw incomplete on first and second downs, then completed a bomb--the ball was in the air about 50 yards--to wide receiver Anthony Carter to set up a 5-yard scoring pass play.

Wilson is underrated, particularly by his own coaches, in part because he isn’t a picture passer. But he’s a stable quarterback, an obvious leader.

And he’s on a team of gifted players--Carter, Browner, Lee, tight end Steve Jordan, defensive linemen Keith Millard and Chris Doleman, and all the rest. It’s hard for Minnesota not to win.

On a cold stage in Ohio Saturday, the Oilers fell behind twice. And both times, Oiler quarterback Moon accepted his challenge, driving Houston ahead.

In the first quarter after Cleveland had a 3-0 lead, Moon presided on a 91-yard march--completing an 18-yard pass on third-and-17--to help put Houston ahead, 7-3.

Then after Cleveland recaptured the lead in the second half, 16-14, the Oilers went on a 76-yard countermarch to regain it, 21-16, and this time they held it.

Moon, unlike Wilson, throws textbook passes--probably the prettiest in the NFL. The ball always flies out in a tight spiral when Moon lets it go, and he only puts enough arc on it to get it there.

Moreover, he’s an unflappable quarterback who, like Wilson, often reaches the top of his game in adversity.

Against the Rams, Wilson, after taking an 18-yard sack, completed an 18-yard pass for a first down. This is the sort of play that Moon makes routinely.

One more thing about Moon: Like Wilson, he plays on a team with some extraordinary talent.

The Oilers, for one example, put a Pro Bowl offensive line on the field and bracket it with peerless receivers Ernie Givins and Drew Hill.

Their problem is that first prize in Saturday’s game was a trip to Buffalo.

The final assessment of the 1988 Rams might be this: Although they can be classed with the NFL’s top half-dozen teams, they don’t run well enough to win a playoff game against a powerful adversary.

Most of running back Greg Bell’s yardage in the Metrodome Monday came on passing downs--on draw plays, specially designed trap plays, and the like.

Coach John Robinson’s ground offense is probably the best in football, but on third-and-1, when it’s power against power, design doesn’t always help.

The evidence is overwhelming that the Eric Dickerson trade cost the Rams their best chance to reach the Super Bowl this season.

With Dickerson running the ball, the Vikings couldn’t have afforded to tee off on Everett on almost every down, as they did this time, doubtless by prearrangement.

Instead, the combination of Everett and Dickerson could have made this a championship team.

The trade may yet prove to be a winner for the Rams, but their first choice, Gaston Green of UCLA, a running back who was supposed to help, didn’t. Nor did they get enough smart speed in their rookie receivers to make up for the step that Henry Ellard has lost.

Among receivers, football speed isn’t measured in 40- or 100-yard dashes. It’s measured in a player’s ability to explode away from defensive coverage.

This year the Rams don’t have that kind of speed, and they don’t have Dickerson anymore, and in Minnesota, they paid for it.