PRO FOOTBALL : There Will Be No Huddle in Bengal ’90 Offensive Scheme

Two years ago, when Sam Wyche, the resourceful coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, re-introduced no-huddle football to a world that hadn’t seen it for about half a century, his opponents charged that he was trying to wangle an unfair advantage.

The Bengals were going for cheap penalty yards, they said, by snapping the ball while the defense was still making substitutions.

In time it was clear that Wyche was legitimately playing a deeper game. By having quarterback Boomer Esiason call plays at the line of scrimmage instead of in a huddle, the Bengals were keeping the defensive team’s specialists off the field.

By coaching the Cincinnati players to line up quickly after each play and threatening to snap the ball instantly, Wyche forced his opponents to stick with, say, a running-game defense on an obvious passing down.

The system was so successful that the Bengals began using it about half the time, and last year they were in it more than 65% of the time.

What’s next?

“Our offensive guys won’t huddle at all this year,” Wyche said the other day from Cincinnati, “except on the goal line sometimes. Out on the field, we’re planning to no-huddle it 100%.”

The Bengals, in other words, have figured out a way to call their whole offense at the line of scrimmage. If they’re the only team doing it full time this year, they’ll have the kind of edge that often counts in football.

The long exhibition season seems to be suggesting one thing to the Rams: They’re deeper in wide receivers than in running backs.

Two or three years down the road, an NFL team in that predicament might well consider shifting to the run-and-shoot offense, which uses four receivers and one back.

The run-and-shoot, moreover, is a formation that has only one ground play--the fake-pass draw play. So it could be the right place for the Rams’ 1988 top pick, Gaston Green, who, in more conventional NFL running formations, has yet to distinguish himself.

But it’s improbable that Coach John Robinson will make a change. His team, which will end its exhibition season Friday night at Washington, is getting too much passing mileage in its present system--with Jim Everett at quarterback--to consider anything else now.

It is more likely that the Rams will elect to improve their ground game by throwing more first- and second-down passes to set up the run for Green. Who, four or five years ago, would have expected that of Robinson?

The Raiders, who will end their exhibition season in the Coliseum Saturday afternoon against the San Diego Chargers, can’t tell what’s ahead in the regular-season opener eight days later:

--The Denver Broncos, who will be in Los Angeles that afternoon, may or may not still be reeling from their recent Super Bowl defeat, their third in four years.

--And they could or could not pull the largest crowd of the Raider season.

They usually do.

The Coliseum turnout for the Raider-Bronco game last year, 90,016, was the top NFL crowd anywhere, including the Super Bowl.

But that was in the heat of a division race in December, and the Broncos will be coming back on an early September afternoon before much interest has materialized in the new race.

The Raiders say there’s one additional problem: Some fans who have been watching ESPN and other TV programs think they’ll have to go to Oakland for the game.

Those who go to the right place will see Jay Schroeder playing so-called Raider football more adeptly than last year. That is, he’s more often hitting the faraway target.

Chuck Knox, beginning his eighth year as coach of the Seattle Seahawks, finally reclaimed his most important offensive player late last week when Brian Blades, the Pro Bowl receiver who had been holding out, reported.

But the Seahawks will start the season without the lineman who could be their best defensive player, Cortez Kennedy, the top draft pick from Miami.

Knox, who will be taking on four improved teams in his division this season, said: “Nobody ever puts an asterisk behind the coach’s name to notify the fans: ‘He didn’t have his best players at training camp.’ ”

Tapes of the Houston Oilers’ first half against the Minnesota defense Sunday are already circulating around the league, and some coaches are nervous about Houston’s new run-and-shoot offense.

They fear that with Warren Moon passing to his many exceptional receivers, the Oilers might be as effective as they’re beginning to look.

The Vikings eventually won Sunday’s exhibition when their third-string quarterback out-played the Oilers’ third-stringer. But when it was first team against first team in the first half, Houston’s run-and-shoot, as coached by Jack Pardee, beat back the Viking defense, which ranks with the NFL’s finest.

Minnesota began by giving Moon a hard time, once throwing him for a safety en route to a 12-0 lead. Even then, however, one or two of Houston’s four receivers were plainly open on every play.

And in the second quarter, Moon got off the floor to defeat the single-covering Vikings with three touchdown strikes, one of which was dropped and a second which was called back on a penalty. Completing most of his passes the hard way--on passing downs--he also led the Oilers to still another touchdown that he scored on a sneak for a 14-12 halftime lead.

Although Minnesota’s best pass rusher, Keith Millard, sat out with an injury--leaving some questions about the Oilers unanswered--Moon operated the run-and-shoot smoothly whenever he was in satisfactory field position.

And against that defense, that was something of a surprise, because Houston has only been in its new offense for three games.

Will the Oilers master it in time to contend this year for the AFC Central title?

“They have better players than we started with last year,” said Mouse Davis, the run-and-shoot creator who assists Coach Wayne Fontes on a Detroit team that has won its last eight in a row--three of them exhibitions this summer. “A lot sort of depends on the selling job that (Pardee) does.

“When you change to the run-and-shoot, one of your biggest jobs is getting the players to believe in it. Last year we had to convince (the Lions). This year they know what it can do, and we’re saving a lot of time that we wasted last year on sales jobs.”

The Chicago Bears nearly boycotted last week’s game, walking out of practice one day, but in the end played the Raiders as scheduled, though not well.

The athletes were protesting the condition of their practice field, which converts to mud when it rains at Bear headquarters in Lake Forest, Ill.

During the walkout, Bear executive Mike McCaskey went on TV to ask the Chicago public for financial assistance in building an indoor practice facility.

McCaskey’s appearance drew 140 tenders of help, including a suggestion from a woman who offered her father’s barn. Not quite what the players had in mind.