And the Teams They Are a-Changin’ : Chargers, Raiders Seeking Identities in Today’s Opener
On paper, it will be the Chargers and the Raiders out there on the Coliseum floor today in the NFL season opener for both teams. Everybody will be hoping like Hades that the temperature at game time is cooler than the hellish 108 degrees recorded at this site one year ago, when these teams also met in the opener.
It was the hottest game in the 29-year history of the Charger franchise. But Raider Tim Brown’s 97-yard kickoff return in the second period left the Chargers cooling their heels. Final score that day: Raiders 24, Chargers 13.
On paper, the Raiders are supposed to win again. Most oddsmakers have installed them as three-point favorites. But new Charger Coach Dan Henning is still looking for the piece of paper that will tell him which Raider team will show up for the 1 p.m. kickoff.
“I see them on film, and I see different people every week,” Henning says. “Then I see some of those people on waivers, and the next day they’re signed back. So, no, they don’t look the same as they did last year. They’ve moved so many people in and out, it’s going to be difficult to tell who’s going to be playing where and when.”
The Raiders were equally confused during the preseason, losing all their exhibition games for the first time.
Part of the problem was the adjustment they are still making to new defensive coordinator Dave Adolph and the schemes he brought with him from Cleveland. Part of the problem was the salary snit that prompted running back Marcus Allen to report late. And part of the problem was the length of time it took second-year Coach Mike Shanahan to get the message from Al Davis: Throw deep and throw often.
Fortunately for Shanahan, he has the ideal quarterback for the job, Jay Schroeder. Henning tutored Schroeder in Washington when he was an assistant there.
“He has got as strong an arm as anybody in this league,” Henning says. “And he can run with just about anybody but (49ers’ backup quarterback Steve) Young in this league. He’s a big, strong guy, he’s an intelligent guy, and he’s very dangerous on the field at any time.”
Henning’s quarterback, Jim McMahon, is not big, he’s not strong, his arm is below average by NFL standards, he is prone to injury and watching him run the football is like being forced to watch a train wreck in slow motion.
But McMahon has the second-best winning percentage as a starter (.754) in the league. And the former Bear is healthy.
The last time he played in a regular season game against the Raiders was almost the last time he played. It was 1984 in a game eventually won by Chicago, 17-6.
Late in the first half McMahon took off out of the pocket. Raider lineman Bill Pickel and linebacker Jeff Barnes caught up to him at the same time. One from the front. One from the back.
“That’s the worst pain I’ve ever felt,” McMahon says. He knew something was seriously wrong immediately. It turned out to be a lacerated kidney. At halftime, he kept to himself. But the pain became so great in the third period he couldn’t call signals. When he got to the locker room and stopped to go to the bathroom, his urine was blood red.
“Scared the . . . out of me,” McMahon says. “It could have been life-threatening if I’d let it go any longer.”
The blood apparently was leaking from his lungs. Still, it took doctors more than six hours from the time McMahon arrived at the hospital to determine exactly what the problem was.
McMahon missed all of that season. And he hasn’t played an entire season without injury since. The Chargers are gambling this will be the year his body turns out to be as tough as his mind.
To that end they have surrounded him with an almost entirely new offensive cast. Shanahan will be excused if he doesn’t recognize the offense that his team limited to 16 points in two games last year.
Charger tackles Joel Patten and Brett Miller were playing in Indianapolis and Atlanta last year. Center Courtney Hall was a senior at Rice. Right guard David Richards was a right tackle. H-back Joe Caravello was a Redskin. McMahon was a Bear. And 250-pound rookie running back Marion Butts, the replacement for unsigned Gary Anderson, was mostly a special team player at Florida State.
Only left guard Broderick Thompson, tight end Arthur Cox and receivers Anthony Miller and Quinn Early will start at the same positions in the offense as they did a year ago.
“We can be as good as we want to be,” McMahon says. “We’ve got a lot of talent.”
As good as they want to be would mean the Chargers would end up in the Super Bowl. That is unlikely. But an improvement over last year’s 6-10 record and 26th place finish in NFL total offense is well within reach.
The main reason is an improved young defense--which was bolstered further Saturday when the Chargers activated defensive end Joe Phillips, a training camp holdout, and waived receiver Darryl Usher--and a schedule that makes them play only three teams that won more than nine games in 1988.
Defensive coordinator Ron Lynn saw all he needed from the Charger defense in the team’s second exhibition game, a 24-7 victory over the Bears in Chicago. In that game, the Bears never moved the ball with any consistency until the end of the fourth period, when the field was mostly filled with players who are looking for work right now.
“People say the exhibition season is meaningless; I don’t believe that,” Lynn says. “The scores may be. But what we saw on film was reflective of the score. The things that we preached were there. And I hadn’t seen that yet on as consistent a basis as I’ve seen in four years.”
The victory over the Bears preceded the arrival of rookie Burt Grossman, who will start at right defensive end against the Raiders. Grossman says he likes the Raiders uniforms and what they stand for.
But, he says, “No team has a mystique for me. The mystique team is the team that wins the Super Bowl.”