Rolling Raiders Face Bickering Bills : AFC: L.A. goes for first 5-0 start against talented team that often finds turmoil.

There isn’t much the Raiders haven’t done in football. Just ask them.

They’ve won Super Bowl titles, playoff games, court cases, nasty reputations. They’ve changed addresses, pocketed enticement fees, testified on behalf of competing leagues and slapped the NFL around in front of federal judges.

What the Raiders have never done, though, is start the season with five victories, an opportunity that awaits tonight at Rich Stadium when they meet the always intriguing Buffalo Bills.

All that history and never a 5-0 start? Never. The Raiders have gone 4-0 four previous times, all leading to playoff appearances. In 1983, they started fast and ended up winning the Super Bowl.

Will the streak end here? Well, the Bills have broken streaks before.

Last year, for instance, the Rams came to town 5-0 and left with a last-second loss that ignited a four-game losing streak. Former Ram Greg Bell, a one-time Bill, filled notebooks that week with his railings against Buffalo management and a certain team physician. Bell was riding high upon his return, having gained 512 yards in five games. The Buffalo defense held Bell to 44 yards in 21 carries.

Bell, traded to the Raiders last spring, was all ears last week.

The Bills have proven to be quite capable of destruction and not just of themselves. Raider Coach Art Shell, a former left tackle, reviewed the Buffalo game film this week and was thankful he retired before defensive end Bruce Smith entered the league.

Asked how he would attack Smith, Shell replied: “Call for help.”

Smith joins an all-star cast that includes quarterback Jim Kelly, tailback Thurman Thomas, linebacker Cornelius Bennett, wide receiver Andre Reed, et al. In the usual trading of pregame compliments, Buffalo Coach Marv Levy said he thought the Raiders had the best talent in the league.

“Tell Marv to pick up the papers and listen to the airwaves,” Shell said. “His team is the one that has it all.”

Shell said it starts on defense with Smith, a sixth-year player from Virginia Tech, who has 17 tackles, four sacks, four forced fumbles and a few dozen intimidations.

“That man can disrupt a football team,” Shell said.

Sometimes even his own. After an off-season spent mending the wounds of a 1989 season wracked with dissension--a year in which a running back, Thomas, criticized Kelly on a local television show--trouble struck again Sept. 16 in Miami. In the waning moments of a 30-7 loss to the Dolphins, Levy pulled Kelly from the game, knowing all was lost.

Smith complained openly to Levy on the sidelines. Three other defensive players refused to leave the game when Levy sent in substitutes.

The Bickering Bills, as they’ve come to be known, were back. Or where they? Levy said no.

“First of all, I don’t think there was any bickering,” Levy said. “It makes a nice alliteration, it goes with Bills. One player (Smith) came to me and said, ‘Why are you substituting?’ I told him it was my decision and to go sit down, and he did. That was it. It was gradually stirred up and became public. I did fine the man.”

Levy also fined the three players who wouldn’t leave the game.

“The players said they accepted the fine,” Levy said. “They understand it. The motivation was to say that even though they’ve taken a terrible licking, they weren’t going to put their tails between their legs and come off. . . . I told them their perspective was wrong, they accepted the fine and that was it.”

Last Sunday, in fact, the Bills showed the stuff of champions, rallying for three touchdowns in a span of 1 minute 17 seconds to beat the Denver Broncos, 29-28.

And for all their troubles in 1989, the Bills would have advanced to the AFC title game had Ronnie Harmon not dropped a touchdown pass in the closing seconds against the Cleveland Browns.

“It’s a hard reputation to shake,” Levy said of his team’s inner turmoil. “But I think this team is very much together. Late last season, I don’t think any team in football pulled together better than our team did. . . . In that final drive of the (Cleveland) game, every single player (on the sideline) stood there behind the bench holding hands as a show of solidarity. That gesture by our team has been ignored.”

The Raiders keep looking for motivations, real or imagined. Last week, Shell plucked a throwaway line from Cris Collinsworth, former Cincinnati Bengal receiver turned HBO commentator, “The Raiders are the worst 3-0 team in football” and made a rallying cry of it.

A Raider official said Collinsworth has always disliked the Raiders. No respect, baby.

“We’re just the lowly Raiders,” Shell said. “Just trying to find our way.”

Raider Notes

Defensive end Mike Wise was still limping on a sprained right ankle late in the week and is questionable for the game. Wise maintained he would be ready, but the Raiders are hesitant to test the ankle on the artificial surface at Rich Stadium.

The Raider defense has allowed two touchdowns and an NFL-low 35 points in four games. . . . The Raiders also lead the league with 17 sacks. . . . The Raiders are 1-3 at Rich Stadium, 4-8 against the Bills on the road overall.

Quarterback Jay Schroeder is the AFC’s second-rated passer with a 90.2 rating. . . . Buffalo Coach Marv Levy said this is a different Raider team than the one his team defeated, 37-21, at Rich Stadium in 1988. “Their team speed is tremendous,” he said. . . . Former Raider receiver James Lofton, a starter at wide receiver position for the Bills, has 11 catches for 167 yards.