Winning Ways Are the Same for Raiders, Bears : Pro football: L.A.’s Shell, Chicago’s Ditka will stick with what got them to 3-0--the running game.

For one game, the forward pass as we’ve come to know it may cease to exist. The Raiders and Chicago Bears, using scripts from another era, threaten to reduce today’s game to a public pushing contest in a battle of undefeated teams at the Coliseum.

On one side, Raider Coach Art Shell has said in so many words that any team that throws the ball 30 times a game should have its head coach examined.

On the other, Bear Coach Mike Ditka has threatened to run the ball 70 times a game, if that’s what it takes.

Scoffing at today’s offensive wizardry and the glitter of run-and-shoot, the Raiders and Bears threaten to set the game back 60 years. Why? Because they are winning, and this is a league of copy-cat coaches and strategists.

Passes might be pretty, but nothing beats winning. Sometimes, winning is this: At one stretch in last week’s 19-16 victory over Minnesota, the Bears ran 19 consecutive running plays. Chicago ran 43 times for 215 yards. Quarterback Jim Harbaugh threw 16 passes, completed five for 43 yards and otherwise stayed out of harm’s way.

In the battle for fewest passes thrown, Harbaugh, with 59 through three games, ranks second only to Jay Schroeder of the Raiders, who has 54. (New England’s Steve Grogan has 52, but he didn’t play last week.)

The Raiders and Bears have taken the same conservative approach on the road to 3-0. Both teams are unsteady at quarterback, so they have relied on strong running games and dominant defenses.

How dominant? The Raiders have allowed an NFL-low 25 points and one touchdown in three games. The Raider defense has scored more touchdowns, two, than it has given up. The Bears are right on their heels, having given up 29 points and two touchdowns. Shell acknowledges that he and Ditka share the same philosophies.

“I just want to win,” Shell said. “If it means we’ve got to win , 3-0, I’ll take that. If it means we’ve got to win 35-34, I’ll take that.”

A 3-0 score seems more likely today.

Ditka doesn’t know how long he can get away with 16 passes a game, the total Harbaugh has attempted in Chicago’s last two victories.

“I think it would be a departure from the norm,” Ditka said. “I think you have to have the ability to throw the ball, and more than some confidence in your passing game. But the bottom line in this game is that you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. You can’t ever fool yourself, or get caught up in looking at stats, or wonder, ‘Oh, gee, I saw Cincinnati and they do this.’ ”

After last year’s 6-10 finish, the worst in his eight years as the Bears’ coach, Chicago, Ditka didn’t much care how he got it turned around. The Bears had a 4-0 start in 1989 but closed the season with six consecutive losses. At one point in the schedule, Ditka predicted his team would never win again, and it didn’t.

Either through group therapy or sheer will, Ditka claims to have blocked the season from memory. He wouldn’t even say he was surprised by his team’s fast start, for that would be acknowledging last season’s slow finish.

“What should I say, that I expected to lose?” Ditka said. “You don’t understand. You don’t live in the past, do you? That’s dead. You don’t base anything on last year. We don’t base anything on last week or next week. It’s silly. Why would you want to talk about last year? It’s one thing we don’t talk about around here. Based on what? Based on ’85. You want to talk about that, too? We had a good season in ’85. So what? Who cares? Who cares what we did last year?’

But what about that dramatic turnaround?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ditka said. “What was last year? Do you remember what you got for Christmas? I don’t.”

A few clues, regardless. The Bear defense, which ranked 25th in 1989, is looking more like the unit that dominated the mid-1980s. Ditka is moving defensive end Richard Dent along the line of scrimmage this season, and Dent has responded with four sacks. Defensive end Trace Armstrong, the No. 1 pick of 1989, leads the league with five sacks. William Perry has pushed his dinner plate aside long enough to play the best football of his six-year career.

“One thing about William people don’t understand,” Ditka said. “When he’s out there, you have to account for him.”

On offense, Neal Anderson leads the NFL in rushing with 263 yards in 64 carries. But he couldn’t do it without Harbaugh, who hands Anderson the ball. Today, it will be more of the same.

Raider Notes

Neal Anderson has sore ribs, but Chicago Coach Mike Ditka said the running back would play. “He’s probable,” Ditka said. “He’ll play, but he’s hurt.” . . . Fullback Brad Muster, a first-round pick in 1988, had a career-high 90 yards in 14 carries last week against the Minnesota Vikings. . . . Raider Coach Art Shell said his team’s 20-3 exhibition victory over the Bears means nothing. “It’s live bullets now,” he said.

Bear defensive tackle William Perry, who had reduced his weight to an estimated 298 pounds in training camp, is back up in the 320-pound range again. “I can live with it,” Ditka said. “I’d like him down a little lower. His job is to play football and play the best he can. As long as he does that, I’m not going to have any gripes about pounds here or there. . . . The Raiders and Bears are two of five unbeaten teams in the NFL. . . . Shell and Ditka, both in the Hall of Fame as players, never faced each other on the field.