PRO FOOTBALL : Elway Still Looking for a Better Way

One difference between John Elway of the Denver Broncos and Jay Schroeder of the Raiders, the opposing quarterbacks in next Sunday’s regular-season opener at the Coliseum, is that Elway, a Bronco for eight years, has been on the losing side in three of the last four Super Bowls.

That might shake up some people, but not Elway, according to a Denver executive who has been with him since his rookie season.

“He had his best summer,” Lide Huggins, the club’s director of football operations, said the other day. “John completed more passes for more yards than ever.

“I know it was just the preseason, but you can tell about some things, and John is showing a much better grasp of the whole (offense).”

As drilled by quarterback coach Mike Shanahan--who a year ago was head coach of the Raiders--Elway is taking a somewhat shorter drop this season and throwing shorter passes.

Thus his completion rate last month, when he completed 51 of 72 passes, was 71%. His lifetime average: 54%.

“(Elway) is still the best at making something happen when nothing is there,” Huggins said. “They tell me that the best of the old-time trail blazers were the guys who could go somewhere they’d never been before and get back. Elway is like that.”

The most responsible way to look at the AFC’s Western Division this year, in the view of many who play and coach in it, is to consider that the top four teams are about even--except in one detail: The Broncos have the division’s only established quarterback.

Neither San Diego nor Kansas City is sure that Sunday’s starters, Mark Vlasic and Steve DeBerg, will be the November starters. And in Los Angeles, there’s an element that still expects to see somebody besides Schroeder.

What is Denver’s edge with a veteran like Elway?

“There’s no experience to compare with running the same team for six or seven years,” Huggins said. “You know you can go up and down the field staying within the concept of what your team is trying to do.

“You know what it’s like to hold a lead in a tough game, or come from behind when the odds are against you.”

In other respects, AFC coaches see many similarities between Elway, a 215-pounder who stands 6 feet 3, and Schroeder, who at 215 stands 6-4.

Both have powerful arms. And both are often a little wild.

“It’s like they’re out of the same mold,” Huggins said.

The holdout of Raider quarterback Steve Beuerlein this summer was deliberately orchestrated by the club, according to an NFL source with ties to both conferences.

The Raiders decided, the observer said, to go with Schroeder because of his stronger arm. And they didn’t want his self-confidence shattered in exhibition-season media comparisons with Beuerlein, whose shorter passes are more accurate.

“(Several years ago) Schroeder was a great quarterback in Washington before the Redskins brought in Doug Williams to compete with him,” the source said. “He went downhill fast after that.

“Schroeder is a good long passer, but nobody throws every long pass for a bull’s-eye. And Schroeder is very sensitive to criticism for what people say are his mistakes--more sensitive than other players.

“Al Davis is sure he can win with Schroeder, and he wants a confident quarterback out there, a guy who is trying to win games, not media competitions with (Beuerlein).”

The Raiders this summer brought in one of the nation’s top coaches, Mike White, to work with Schroeder. Then they disclosed Schroeder’s salary: $1 million, about twice what they had been offering Beuerlein.

The exhibition season last month suggested that if the Washington Redskins are going to catch the San Francisco 49ers this year, they’ll need a bit more defense, particularly a stronger pass rush.

But with quarterback Mark Rypien throwing in the Redskins’ one-back offense, which will be on view in San Francisco a week from Sunday, they are hard to outscore.

To Washington Coach Joe Gibbs, one back means either two tight ends or three wide receivers--with one of them in motion on nearly every play.

“The Redskins get more out of players in motion than most teams,” Los Angeles lawyer Pat Haden commented last week in his other life on TV.

An analyst on the NFL’s new series of Sunday night games, Haden said: “Most teams use the motion guy as a decoy.”

Most teams also use fewer three-wide receiver formations. Under Gibbs, the Redskins want power first, but not exclusively.

Jim Everett started every game for the Rams last year and also the year before. For a 6-foot-5 quarterback, he is more durable and harder to track down than some opponents expect.

That’s one plus in this season of so many Ram injuries. Another is that Coach John Robinson, throughout his time in pro football, has attracted a legion of gifted wide receivers.

At least two have been starting elsewhere this summer--Drew Hill at Houston and Michael Young at Denver--and presumably the receivers remaining on the Ram roster are the best of the bunch.

If some are hurt, there will be others for Everett to throw to in the opener Sunday at Green Bay.

At 27, a four-year NFL veteran, Everett starts the season as the coming giant of a profession in which Joe Montana is 34. He already resembles Montana much of the time and former star Dan Fouts the rest of the time.

As for the ground game, the Rams are getting by in the post-Eric Dickerson years on Robinson know-how and Pro Bowl blocking.

Houston cornerback Cris Dishman was caught showboating last week. Sprinting for a sure touchdown with an intercepted pass, Dishman taunted the pursuit by waving the ball with an extended arm but forgot to look both ways.

Hit from the blind side, he fumbled away the touchdown and the game to Minnesota, 22-21.

After returning to Houston, hardly chastened, Dishman said: “I’m human, and humans make mistakes. I’m sorry if anyone expects me to be inhuman.”

Jack Pardee, the new Oiler coach, said he will continue to remind his starting left cornerback of the errors of his ways.

“(Dishman’s) fumble is the featured segment on our follies film,” Pardee said.

Asked if he’d trade Dishman if he blows another game with that play, the Houston coach said: “I don’t think I’d trade him for any defensive back in the league right now.”

The no-huddle offense and the run and shoot and other four-receiver formations were used extensively this summer and will apparently get a workout during the regular season, perhaps in ever-increasing numbers.

The innovations represent some of the most drastic changes in a game that is always changing--but seldom so strikingly.

Among other teams, the Raiders rode the no-huddle to a third-quarter touchdown against San Diego Saturday.

Its purpose is to keep defensive specialists off the field. Because every NFL team uses no-huddle plays in its two-minute offense, it isn’t hard to incorporate into the game plan, Coach Sam Wyche of the Cincinnati Bengals said.

As for the run and shoot, Houston and the Detroit Lions expect to stay with it, they said this week, until somebody stops it.

Pardee was considered the most conservative of all coaches before he embraced the run and shoot in 1984 as the leader of the USFL’s Houston Gamblers.

“I decided after coaching the Chicago Bears and Washington Redskins (in 1975-80) that when I took another team, it would be a passing team.

“So I researched the best of them and saw that just passing isn’t enough. You’ve got to get rid of the ball fast to have a good passing attack these days when there are so many blitzers around.

“I saw films of two kinds of quick-passing teams--Bill Walsh’s and the Mouse Davis’ run and shoot--and I decided to hire (as an assistant) whoever I could get from those (systems).

“I tried Walsh first, but nobody was available. Then I called Mouse, and he said, ‘Sure, I’ll be there tomorrow.’ ”

So Pardee, in his third NFL coaching tour, is in the run and shoot instead of 49er football.

June Jones of Detroit, the passing expert who works with Davis on Coach Wayne Fontes’ staff, said football fans seem to be comfortable with the run and shoot because it doesn’t look as radical as it is.

“Our quarterback doesn’t do a lot of rolling out or running around,” Jones said. “He usually drops straight back for a couple of steps before rolling out a couple of steps. If you aren’t paying close attention, he looks like a dropback passer.

“And most fans don’t know the difference between tight ends and wide receivers. We look a good deal like a mainstream football team out there. We just think we can get better results than a mainstream team.”