RAIDERS 40, CHARGERS 14 : Beuerlein Does Not Pass Up This Chance

Steve Beuerlein turned out to be the Coliseum’s quarterback du jour --not Jay Schroeder, who got hurt, or Jim McMahon, who always gets hurt. Not only did the home boys win their season opener, but they lost their starting quarterback after one series and still scored 40 points in a game for the first time since Dec. 2, 1984. Go figure.

Beuerlein, seizing the day, relief-pitched two of his team’s three touchdown passes Sunday as Coach Mike Shanahan’s Unbeaten, Untied, Untested Los Angeles (Still Ours And Don’t You Forget It) Raiders introduced the San Diego Chargers to their alarming new offense--Air Raider.

“Some teams don’t have one good quarterback, and we’ve got two,” rookie offensive tackle Steve Wisniewski said, savoring a score of 40-14 on his first official day as a National Football Leaguer.

Give Schroeder the victory, then, and Beuerlein the save-- unless you feel the starter didn’t last long enough to qualify. Before being too quick to dismiss Schroeder’s contribution, however, keep in mind that his 79 yards passing in three minutes were only 13 fewer yards than McMahon gave San Diego with 18 attempts over 2 1/2 quarters.

Few football squads have the luxury of going to somebody as good as Beuerlein when the first-string quarterback goes down--although heaven knows who would have taken snaps for the Raiders had they needed a third man to step in.

“Probably Marcus,” Beuerlein said.

Marcus--as in Allen? As in running back, just-got-back, former San Diego Lincoln High School quarterback Marcus Allen? Well, Allen has, in fact, thrown 21 passes for the Raiders, completing nine--four for touchdowns. OK, sure. Why not Marcus Allen? Next time the Raiders get ahead by 40-14, let’s put him in there.

“I wasn’t thinking about who’d play quarterback if I couldn’t,” Beuerlein said, “but I’ll bet you Mike Shanahan was.”

The coach had enough on his mind going into the game, worrying about the injured Scott Davis being unable to start at defensive end, about the recently waived Otis Wilson being asked to start at outside linebacker, about the late-arriving Allen having to handle the heavy rushing load, without needing the added anxiety of losing Schroeder to a shoulder separation and wide receiver Tim Brown to a knee injury.

Everybody came through for him, however, and we don’t just mean Beuerlein.

This game was more than that. This game was nose tackle Bill Pickel putting a heavy-duty pursuit on McMahon and planting him. It was 36-year-old Mike Haynes bird-dogging Charger wide receiver Anthony Miller, step for step. It was special-teamer Stefon Adams turning punt-returner Wayne Walker upside down. It was linebacker Tom Benson nailing running back Marion Butts at the moment of handoff and knocking him on his surname.

These were not the bums of August, the Raiders who impressed nobody, including themselves.

“We finally got together and said, you know, enough’s enough,” defensive tackle Bob Golic said. “If we’d played the opener the way we played the preseason, we might be wallowing in the mire for the rest of the season.”

The last thing an exasperated team needs is to lose its leader, theoretically, but the Raiders lost Schroeder and hardly blinked. Beuerlein took one series to get loose, then directed the Raiders on a 15-play, 78-yard drive that included flips to Vance Mueller, to Steve Smith, to Brown and to Mervyn Fernandez. Touchdown, Raiders.

And, next time he touched the ball, Beuerlein took the offense 49 yards in nine plays, throwing to Willie Gault and Mike Dyal along the way. This guy knows how to share the wealth. Eight players caught passes for the Raiders, and that didn’t even include Mike Alexander, the kid who had caught so many during the exhibition games. Beuerlein played no favorites.

He did, however, love looking long for Gault.

“That guy, he can run by anybody ,” Beuerlein said. “I look up and he’s gone. Show a highlight film of him. Watch him leave people in his dust.”

Wouldn’t it be something if the Raiders do the same--leave people in their dust? Such a thing did not seem very likely-- still doesn’t--but there was always hope as long as Beuerlein remained so impressive during the exhibition season, and there is continued hope now that we can see he was no mirage.

“As a backup, you always know you’re one play away,” Beuerlein said. “One play and boom , you’re in there. You’d better be ready, boy. You’d better prepare yourself for the most unbelievable thing that can happen, like Jay getting hurt on his very first play.

“But, I have to be honest about it. It still kind of startled me. No matter how ready I was, it still kind of startled me.”

That was the Raiders’ season opener in a nutshell. They kind of startled everybody.