Playoff Berth Is Nice, but Shell Isn’t Done : Raiders: With an eye to winning the AFC West title, coach vows to fight any complacency.

Hours after the Raiders clinched their first playoff berth since 1985, Coach Art Shell turned out the Coliseum lights Sunday night and did one of the following:

a) Rounded up some of the old gang--Ted Hendricks, Kenny Stabler, Jim Plunkett--rented a super-stretch limousine (more head room for “the Stork”) and high-tailed it down to Lyle Alzado’s restaurant. They rang up a $10,000 tab and charged it to Al Davis. Shell danced on the table and told Irwindale jokes.

b) Shell went home.

Not one to waste syllables, Shell needed 16 words to answer.

“Went home last night, sat home with the family, waited till the film came. Watched it.”

Lock up the kids if the Raiders clinch the AFC West title. The man who led a Raider exodus from a four-year football fog was watching film of this week’s opponent, the Minnesota Vikings, almost before his shirt had dried from the post-playoff clinching Gatorade dumping Bo Jackson performed at the end of Sunday’s victory over Cincinnati.

Shell’s even-handed, no-nonsense approach has defined the Raiders’ success this season. He refused to panic when Howie Long suffered a broken foot early in the season, and he stuck by quarterback Jay Schroeder when some fans were sticking Schroeder’s mug to a dart board. Shell’s physical presence could be felt from team meetings to news conferences. Tough questions were met with tougher answers. Steve Beuerlein wasn’t a good subject.

While others were celebrating Monday, Shell made it clear that the Raiders’ work had only begun. He set the example back in July and he is holding the ship steady in December. There are still two games to play and a division title to be won.

Shell attacks complacency the way he used to shoulder a blocking sled.

“I won’t allow them to do that,” Shell said. “If I see any kind of complacency there, they’ll have to answer to me. That can’t happen. You’re too far into the season for that to happen to you. Because there’s something there for you at the end of the rainbow. You’ve got to continue to work. Now’s the time to turn it on, not the time to take it easy. A lot of good teams are getting better every week.”

Shell’s team is one of them and he wants to keep it that way. Some nice things are being said about Shell these days. In a recent survey of AFC coaches by NBC’s Will McDonough, Shell picked up three votes for coach of the year.

Shell said he voted for Seattle’s Chuck Knox, but was flattered by the attention that comes with winning.

“Sure, it means there’s a little bit of respect there,” he said. “But you’ve got to earn your respect. It’s like anything else. You’ve got to earn your respect when you’re a player, you’ve got to earn your respect as a coach. Your team wins, then you start getting a little bit of respect. Our team is winning, and hopefully we’ll be winning for a long time.”

But Shell said he doesn’t thrive on the personal attention.

“Those things aren’t important for me, believe me,” Shell said. “It’s nice when you guys write nice things, but I really don’t need it. My ego’s not such that I need it. I’ve done a lot of things in football. It’s not important that I have notoriety for doing things. You’ve got to understand that the game is won by football players. Players win games.”

Shell said it’s his job to keep his players prepared and motivated, and to serve as a buffer from the public.

Shell gets letters. Shell reads the paper. Shell acts accordingly.

“I look at it, throw it down, go about my business,” he said. “You can’t start listening to other people. People have their opinions as to how things should be done. You get fan mail about how things should be done. When I start reading fan mail saying, ‘You should be doing this,’ I take it and flip it in the trash can, because it’s not important. If I get fired, I’m going to get fired for what I believe in.”

The Raiders will travel to Minnesota this week for a Saturday game, meaning they will have played three games in 13 days, two on the road.

“It’s tough, especially when you’ve got to fly back and forth across the country,” Shell said. “But you see the schedule when it comes out, and you deal with it.”