Directional Problem for Raiders : On and Off the Field, Where Are They Headed?

Regardless of appearances, every exhibition season carries some blessing.

For the Raiders, this summer’s is the gift of humility. At least they won’t go into the season cocky.

There were few others. If once they were known for their famous commitment and gnarly reputation, they’ve turned into something else: a house divided, not to mention, on wheels. An organization trying to figure out where it’s going, on and off the field.

Shoppers.

You want a metaphor for their summer? Try their newest line of caps and souvenirs, which bear only the name, “Raiders.” No Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento or Parts Unknown. Meet your Generic Raiders, preparing once more, in Al Davis’ immortal phrase, to strike terror into opponents’ hearts, from whatever venue.

Whatever its problems, as recently as two seasons ago this football operation was continuity, itself. Now, everything is done on the fly. From last season’s opener, there are new starters at 16 positions--eight on offense, eight on defense.

A year ago, the new coach, Mike Shanahan, saw his veteran quarterback, Marc Wilson, depart in a holdout squabble; started camp with one offensive line; got a better line by the season opener, and then saw that line torn apart to get another veteran quarterback who arrived too late to be of much use.

This season, the new defensive coordinator, Dave Adolph, replaced five of last season’s starters . . . and then saw one of his new first-stringers, Otis Wilson, waived in the final cut.

Jerry Robinson, projected to switch to the key middle linebacker position, has a groin pull and hasn’t yet lined up at the position. The team spent two weeks debating whether to cut Matt Millen, the only Pro Bowler on defense last season, in favor of Miami’s long-time prospect-gone-bust, Jackie Shipp.

Millen also functioned as the team’s defensive quarterback and Raider veterans stuffed their fists in their mouths and held their breaths.

Monday they got the word. Millen was gone.

“Obviously,” a veteran said, “it’s a mistake.”

Robinson is still out with a groin pull, so the Raiders will start with Shipp, playing with a broken bone in one hand. Their linebacking corps for the opener features Greg Townsend (an end last season), Shipp (a Dolphin), Thomas Benson (a San Diego Charger) and Emmanuel King (a Cincinnati Bengal).

For veterans, the cuts became a weekly downer as long-time teammates and others with high salaries went one after another: Todd Christensen, James Lofton, Mike Haynes, Millen, Wilson and Mike Richardson. The savings were $3.7 million on those players alone.

The exhibition games were a mess. Stunned by Stacey Toran’s death, the Raiders sleep-walked through a rout by the San Francisco 49ers and never seemed to catch up.

They went 0-4 for the first time in their history, or as the San Diego Union’s Chris Jenkins wrote, “Just winless, baby.”

Nor was it just a matter of meaningless exhibitions wins and losses.

A team’s control of the line of scrimmage is basically defined by how well it plays the run, as opposed to how well it runs.

The Raiders averaged 57.5 yards a game and 2.9 yards a carry . . . and allowed 179.5 and 4.8. This is the basic definition of an expansion team.

But no matter how shaky, exhibition season is only exhibition season and the Raiders are assuredly better than that. Aren’t they?

If anything works out, it will have to be the new Raider Way--on the fly or not at all.

Just wing it, babies.

How did they get into this mess?

It goes back to Tom Flores’ resignation after the 5-10 finish in 1987 and Davis’ need to go outside the organization for the first time.

Though Flores has never protested that his departure was anything but voluntary, there are reasons to believe it wasn’t all his idea. He had never given the slightest hint of wanting out.

Perhaps, Davis suggested politely that this might be the time and Flores, the good soldier, acceded. A Raider insider tells another story: that Davis insisted that Flores fire his offensive assistants and Flores elected to resign first. In fact, four offensive assistants were let go as soon as Flores left.

It was an important moment in Raider history, because for the first time, Davis didn’t think he had a head coaching candidate on the staff. Besides, he was open to the idea of bringing in new blood to update basic Raider philosophy.

He soon encountered trouble.

One candidate, then-Washington Redskin assistant Dan Henning, dropped out by mutual agreement with Davis. Henning told friends that he’d wanted to change the offense and Davis wasn’t going for it.

Another Redskin assistant, Joe Bugel, promptly took himself out of the race.

This left only Shanahan, who was hired.

There was a lesson here. On his first journey outside, Davis couldn’t find anyone willing to go down the line on Raider orthodoxy.

Shanahan thought his only commitment was that he wouldn’t throw anything out without thinking about it first. In fact, he threw a lot out and put in a Denver-style look-short-first passing attack with lots of motion and formations. Davis hated it and told his many confidantes throughout the league. By midseason, Davis’ displeasure was an open secret, starting the power-struggle theory.

“What power struggle?” Shanahan said at the time, laughing. “He’s got all the power. I’ve got all the struggle.”

Davis has since made it public. At the spring league meetings in Palm Desert, he told a group of writers:

” . . . I had a young coach who went in a direction I didn’t necessarily want. But he went. Sometimes in life, you let them go . . . It wasn’t what I’d hoped we’d do or what I thought we were going to do, but I think we’re where we want to be now.”

They’re where some of them want to be, anyway.

The Raider-Bronco rivalry produced a predictable tension among the old Raider assistants and the new ones from Denver. After an unhappy season, Shanahan fired one of the unhappiest holdovers, quarterback coach Tom Walsh, but Davis cancelled the order. When Davis heard that receivers coach Nick Nicolau asked Art Shell why the holdovers were sticking around when they weren’t wanted, he canned Nicolau.

Having learned the hard way about the Raider Way, Shanahan redesigned an offense more to Davis’ liking. The Raiders shift less and throw long more often.

Of course, Davis also insists on the offense working .

Shanahan still looks like he did his first day on the job: bright-eyed, dedicated, confident and personable. Charlie Sumner, the defensive coordinator he fired, later claimed that Shanahan came unglued on the sideline, but if he did, it couldn’t have been a total surprise; he was a rookie head coach in a deteriorating situation under immense pressure. Off the field, Shanahan’s poise was exemplary. With everything bearing down on him, the press corps never witnessed a single lash-out.

So now he’s a second-year coach under immense pressure. There is speculation that he must show more or Davis will can him, too.

Adolph, the new defensive coordinator, is not as well-known. Reticent around writers in Cleveland, where the Browns had no objection to assistants talking, he’s a lost cause as a public figure in this organization, which does object.

Like Shanahan, Adolph has a reputation as sharp and intense. His Cleveland defenses were tough and combative, even without a lot of star players.

Adolph has been told to put the attack back into the Raider defense. He has installed a multiple-front scheme, sliding back and forth between a 3-4 and 4- 3, using the new linebacker, Townsend, as the swing man.

Raider players like what he’s shown them, but they’ve been used to the simplest of schemes and have yet to get this one down. Transitions such as this can take time, but they’re plumb out of that.

If you look at the playing roster, you still think it’s a good team.

A receiving corps of Tim Brown, Willie Gault, Mervyn Fernandez and the promising Mike Alexander? Should be as good as any in the game.

Jay Schroeder and Steve Beuerlein at quarterback? They’re at least as good as anything here since Jim Plunkett cleared age 35.

A defense with Townsend, Howie Long, Robinson, Vann McElroy and Bob Golic? That’s the reigning conference sack leader plus four guys with 11 Pro Bowl appearances among them.

In this game, however, you’re only as good as you are cohesive. The Raiders haven’t been recently.

Several questions remain:

--What about the defense?

They have to hope Robinson will be back soon . . . and can make the switch, or that Shipp finds himself at last. The new corners, Lionel Washington and Terry McDaniel, heirs to the mantle of Haynes-Hayes, have to live up to their promise and stay healthy. The strong safety, newly-converted Zeph Lee, who is willing but often lost, has to hang in there until injured Russell Carter returns.

More to the point, with Millen, Haynes, Toran and Rod Martin gone, with eight new starters from last season’s opener, they have to find themselves in a hurry.

--What about Marcus Allen?

The acknowledged leader of Raider team leaders, voted most valuable player four times in five years--while playing hurt throughout three of them--he got nothing out of his holdout. There were no talks, no promises to renegotiate, not as much as a returned phone call.

Can he come back and play as before?

They’d better hope so.

--The offensive line?

It’s big (the lightest is 275-pound John Gesek) and young (the oldest is Don Mosebar, 27). From center to right tackle, it’s blue chip: No. 1 pick Mosebar, No. 2 pick Steve Wisniewski, No. 2 pick Bruce Wilkerson. On the left side, Rory Graves and Gesek are a free agent and No. 10 pick respectively.

The line needs to stay healthy and come together. That 2.9-yard rushing average can’t all be due to Allen’s absence.

--What about Schroeder?

He has to be more the way he was in the Chicago Bear exhibition, less like the first three. This team can’t carry a struggling quarterback.

The Raiders haven’t won a postseason game since 1984--the Super Bowl victory over the Washington Redskins in Tampa. They haven’t been in one in three seasons.

Bet on four.

RAIDERS CUT ROSTER

High-priced veterans Matt Millen, Otis Wilson and Mike Haynes are waived along with 10 others. Story, Page 6.