A LOOK AT THIS WEEK’S RAM AND RAIDER OPPONENTS : An Aging AFC Rivalry Remains in Full Flower

After center Mike Webster of the Pittsburgh Steelers announced he was quitting football at the end of last season, his teammates held a retirement dinner. He got a gold watch, and teammates and friends roasted him.

Webster, who has played in nine Pro Bowls, more than any other center, and was on four Super Bowl champions, is certain to make the Hall of Fame. With his receding hairline and fleshy facial features, he resembles one of the bronze busts at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

However, Webster’s retirement was short-lived.

After being hired as a Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach, Webster reconsidered and announced that he was returning for his 16th season. He signed a one-year contract with Kansas City as a Plan B free agent.

“I wish that Webster had stayed a coach,” said Raider Coach Mike Shanahan, whose team plays the Chiefs on Sunday at Kansas City.

Why did Webster, 37, postpone retirement?

“It’s a long story,” he said. “It (playing) was something that was never out of the question. But at my age you have to take a little bit of time to see if you can make it through the off-season conditioning program.”

How many more years does he plan to play?

“ Years ?” Webster asked. “Take that down into a little smaller time frame, like minutes and days. I know when I was younger there were days when I felt like I was 50. Now I feel like I’m 70 some days.”

Webster’s decision caught Kansas City Coach Marty Schottenheimer by surprise.

“My biggest concern was that I wanted to be sure that he wanted to play because I didn’t want to have to cut a guy who was headed to the Hall of Fame,” Schottenheimer said.

A fifth-round draft choice from Wisconsin in 1974, Webster spent two years as a reserve behind Ray Mansfield before moving into the Steeler starting lineup. Webster played in a record 220 games for the Steelers.

He said it has been hard adjusting to a new team.

“It’s difficult, but I’m a professional and that’s the way I would have done it again.”

Quarterback Steve DeBerg and Webster are the oldest starting center and quarterback combination in the National Football League this season.

“We don’t think of it that way,” Webster said. “We just have a job to do and we let other people decide whether or not age is significant.”

Webster had brought stability to the rebuilding Chiefs, who gave up more sacks than any AFC team except the Raiders last season.

“Mike’s done a very good job for us,” Schottenheimer said. “We feel he’s performing at least as well if not better than he has for the past few seasons.”

Some think Webster’s decision was financially motivated.

“Mike took one look at his first coach’s pay check and decided to go back and keep playing,” said Raider nose tackle Bob Golic, a close friend of Webster.

“Mike fooled me. I fully expected to run over to the sidelines and wave to him. I was going to ask him how he was doing and how his body felt. But now I’m going to have a much closer opportunity to see him Sunday.”

There were flowers waiting for Webster when he arrived at practice one day last year.

Webster was startled when he opened the card, which read: “Thinking of you on our seventh anniversary. Love, Bob Golic.”

Golic, who had been playing against Webster twice a season for seven years, decided to send Webster a bouquet of flowers.

“When I was playing in Cleveland last year, somebody wrote an article that it was the seventh year in a row that Mike and I had been playing each other. My wife (Jackie) read it and said, ‘You two have been playing each other longer than we’ve been married,’ ” Golic said.

“So I ordered the Merlin Olsen congratulations bouquet and I sent it to him in Pittsburgh. I don’t know if he liked it or not. He didn’t play any easier against me.”

Webster didn’t appreciate the gesture.

“I didn’t call those flowers,” Webster said. “Those were kind of a makeup of pollen and ragweed. He knew I had allergies.”

Webster and Golic maintained a running commentary during their meetings when Webster was with Pittsburgh and Golic was in Cleveland.

“We always talked during the games, but it wasn’t the violent, vicious ‘I’m going to kill you’ type of thing you normally hear,” Golic said.

“One year I hurt my knee against Seattle and I wasn’t supposed to play the next week against Pittsburgh. But they had a special brace made up for me so I could play the Steelers that next week, and I was pumped up and ready to play (Webster).

“I’m panting and I’m drooling for effect to scare him. And as I get down in my stance he says, ‘Hi Bob, how’s your knee?’ It totally broke my concentration. It really threw me off. It just killed me the rest of the day.”

Once, Webster even apologized after the Steelers triple-teamed Golic.

“Pittsburgh did a lot of double- teaming and on one particular play Mike fired out and hit me and both guards came down and hit me and my heels stuck in the Astroturf,” Golic said. “I did a somersault backward and the linebackers were jumping out of the way.

“The next play I said, ‘Mike, that was a hell of a blocking scheme and he said, ‘Bob, I want to apologize to you. Only two of us were supposed to hit you.’ He was really polite.”

When Webster and Golic meet Sunday, it will be the 16th time they have played against each other in eight years. Those battles were with Pittsburgh and Cleveland, but both are with different teams.

“It’s going to be strange not seeing him in a black and gold uniform, but then it’s going to be different envisioning me in something other than a big orange head,” Golic said.

Said Webster: “It’s going to be what I call a Turtle Day, where you’ve got to stick your neck back in your body and just start ramming it in there because you know you’re going to be sore at the end of the day.’

But the Golic-Webster matchups haven’t been all laughs.

Golic suffered two injuries against the Steelers, a broken thumb in a 1984 exhibition game and a broken arm in the final game of the 1987 season, an injury that sidelined him for the playoffs and the Pro Bowl.

Does anyone have an edge in the Webster-Golic rivalry?

“It’s always one of the focal points of our games,” Schottenheimer said. “They’re two great competitors who are relentless in the pursuit of their objectives. But I couldn’t say one dominated.”

Golic recalled the battles with Webster fondly.

“We’ve had a lot of good battles,” Golic said. “He’s a tremendous lineman, one of the best I’ve ever played against. And as he gets older one thing I’m finding out is that his skills don’t diminish. I’ve got the feeling that one day he’ll retire as good a ballplayer as he was when he walked into the league, if not better.”