Remainder of Raider Schedule Takes On a Different Look

Halfway through the season, you pick the Raiders apart and wonder why they aren’t 8-0. In their two defeats, by Buffalo and Kansas City, they squandered fourth-quarter leads on the road.

You nit-pick.

Take away two blocked punts that helped whisk the Bills and Chiefs to victories and maybe the Raider record remains unblemished. Maybe the race in the AFC West would be over. Maybe the Raiders pull out Sunday’s game if they run the ball in one crucial, fourth-quarter series against Kansas City, instead of throwing caution and three incomplete passes to the wind.

Then again, maybe no one believes how far the Raiders have come; how they sit atop the AFC West after eight games, a perch only a few loyal Raider employees could have envisioned last summer after four consecutive seasons at .500 or below.

“I think we’ve done pretty good,” Coach Art Shell said Monday. “We just have to get better as the season goes on. The good teams are going to start getting stronger as the year goes by, and the teams that are not strong are going to fall by the wayside. We don’t plan on being one of the teams that falls by the wayside.”

Why not dream? The Raiders have four remaining home games. They have won all 10 of their games at the Coliseum since Shell took over for Mike Shanahan. If form holds, that’s four more victories and a total of 10. On the road ahead await the Miami Dolphins on Nov. 19, a tougher game than anyone could have imagined a month ago. But then come the Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings, a combined 7-17 so far.

So what’s not to like?

“Everybody looks at the schedule and says it’s easy and soft,” Shell said. “But I found out a long time ago in this league that there ain’t no softies on the schedule. Not for us. I know that.”

Of course, timing is everything. Miami didn’t look so good two months ago. Now, the Dolphins are loaded on defense, of all places, to go with quarterback Dan Marino.

Once, the Broncos were almost unbeatable at home. No more. The Raiders drop by Mile High Stadium on Dec. 2.

Then on Dec. 22, it’s the Vikings at the Metrodome. You’d rather have teeth pulled than play there in past years. Now, who knows? By then, Herschel Walker may be a full-time bobsledder.

The Raiders also get the Cincinnati Bengals at the Coliseum on Dec. 16. Which Cincinnati teams shows up? Will it be Boomer or a bummer?

Shell said he doesn’t look ahead 10 minutes, let alone 10 weeks. He doesn’t bother with stuff like hoping the Bills take a few on the chin so that the Raiders can get home-field advantage and avoid a trip to Buffalo in January for the playoffs. The Dolphins might have something to say about the AFC East race, too.

Shell set no mid-term goals for the Raiders, other than noting the importance of getting off to a fast start.

“In the first five games of the season, if you can come out 4-1 you’re in great shape,” he said, noting that his team did that in his first full season as head coach. “It’s just history with this organization. We’ve always felt that way. . . . You don’t want to dig a hole for yourself and try to climb out of it. That’s tough to do. Why not get on top and let everybody catch you? That’s what you want.”

So far, that’s what the Raiders have done.

They have done it, surprise, with quarterback Jay Schroeder, and largely without the services of receiver Tim Brown, a former Heisman Trophy winner of many moves who presently has nowhere to shake. Brown has five catches in eight games.

They have done it without last year’s starting quarterback, Steve Beuerlein, who hasn’t dressed for a game.

And they have done it largely without Bo Jackson, who is 1-1 as a Raider.