THE NFL PLAYOFFS : Buffalo Braces for More Than Weather : Struggling Bills May Have Their Difficulties Against Those Ornery Oilers

The Houston Oilers are coming, the Houston Oilers are coming.

America’s incorrigibles are on the road again, their reputations preceding them, threatening another hometown darling. Today it’s the Buffalo Bills, playing their first playoff game at home in 22 years before their wild, crazy, longest-suffering, ready-to-party-hearty fans.

The Bills are 3 1/2-point favorites, although a look at their recent record makes you wonder.

Meet the Paper Bills?

Buffalo had the league’s best record--11-1--until losing 3 of its last 4. The Bills were outrushed in the losses, 232 to 110 yards, 110-39 and 53-19, an ominous sign for a conservative team. Also, Shane Conlan, the inside linebacker who was a key to their rushing defense until he missed all of the late losses, is expected to sit out again; quarterback Jim Kelly is under increasing fire, and some of it is coming from a teammate.

That’s halfback Robb Riddick, who recently told a TV station in Rochester, N.Y., “I just don’t feel Jim is doing the job he is being paid to do.”

Riddick was upset that the backs weren’t being thrown enough passes, although you have to wonder which games he has been watching. More than one-third of Kelly’s completions have gone to his backs.

Coach Marv Levy was upset with the timing of the remarks and said there was nothing to it.

“Robb came back and called Jim Kelly that night,” Levy said. “He told him the remarks came out much different than he’d expected and apologized for whatever embarrassment there was.

“Jim said, ‘Forget it, I know how these things happen, we’ve got more important things to deal with than that.’ ”

That Kelly is a brick, isn’t he?

Of course, he may have been a tiny bit more perturbed than Levy said he was.

Kelly is generally considered one of the game’s best young quarterbacks, has just made the Pro Bowl over such candidates as Dan Marino and John Elway . . . and has been getting ripped in letters to the editor and on radio talk shows by the arch-supportive Bills faithful. There’s a reason for it too--try 15 touchdown passes against 17 interceptions, compared to the 41-28 ratio he compiled in his first 2 seasons.

Irony: As he starts to get his greatest praise since entering the league, he’s drawing his most heat, too.

Bottom line: He’s getting angry about it.

“I’m so tired of hearing about negative things,” he said last week, when the Riddick question came up.

But hadn’t Riddick called to apologize, etc.?

“Yeah,” said Kelly, without enthusiasm, “he called.”

On the other hand, the Bills still have Bruce Smith (11 sacks in 12 games), Cornelius Bennett (9 1/2), Fred Smerlas and the rest of that rock-ribbed defense that got them here. The Oilers, renowned, warm-weather warriors, will face a more forbidding day than they got last week at Cleveland.

The Bills are already braced for all of those Oiler tough-guy tactics, vowing not to retaliate, as the Browns’ Ernest Byner did, earning back-to-back roughing penalties and killing a drive. However, you might conclude that the Oilers’ Raider-type reputation is already working for them: the Bills are spending all this time worrying about what the Oilers will do and how they’ll handle it.

Actually, the Oilers have been on their best behavior.

Jerry Glanville, fresh from eliminating the Browns and bringing down their coaching staff, took it easy on Buffalo, where he was an assistant 1 season. He said nothing bad about the town, which has provided fertile material for so many comedians, except to remark that he was leaving tickets for the late Jay Silverheels, the local actor who used to play Tonto.

For a change, the most hated Oiler isn’t their macho little coach but General Manager Ladd Herzeg. It was Herzeg who, in 1987, was accused of having made an, uh, impolite gesture during an argument at the team’s hotel with members of a wedding party.

Assault charges were filed against Herzeg but dropped by a Buffalo judge, on the condition that Herzeg stays out of local trouble.

If those wedding receptions quit hassling him, he’ll be fine.

AFC Playoff Notes

Come Back, Shane: the Bills sent Shane Conlan to Birmingham, Ala., last week to have Dr. James Andrews look at his injured arch which isn’t responding to rest or therapy. Said Coach Marv Levy: “We’re not counting on him, but we haven’t counted him out.” . . . Classic confrontation: Houston’s offensive line, with its three, high No. 1 picks (Pro Bowl guards Bruce Matthews and Mike Munchak, and tackle Dean Steinkuhler) against the Bills’ defensive front, which has four No. 1s (Pro Bowl players Bruce Smith, Cornelius Bennett, Conlan and Art Still) and two No. 2s (Pro Bowl player Fred Smerlas and Darryl Talley). . . . Key matchup, or Battle of the Bruces: Oiler left tackle Bruce Davis, the former Raider, vs. Bill right end Bruce Smith, second only to the Eagles’ Reggie White in potential to disable an entire offense by himself. Smerlas, the colorful nose tackle, faces center Jay Pennison, who the Raiders considered the Oiler line’s weak link. Of course, the Raiders thought Smerlas was a hype, too. . . . The Bills are 11-1 when they have rushed for more than 100 yards. However, the underrated Oiler defense was No. 1 in the American Football Conference against the run. . . . Levy, on defensing the Oilers: “They’re not one dimensional. There’s no one thing to stop. We can’t say something like, ‘Stop Eric Dickerson and you’ll stop the Colts. It’s not that simple. They have a superior offensive line, great receivers, a fine quarterback (Warren Moon) who gets better all the time and that tremendous stable of runners.”