PRO FOOTBALL : This Season They Need Reserves

This is the winter of the backup quarterback. From coast to coast, as the NFL’s 71st regular season wound down over the weekend, more than the usual number of No. 1 quarterbacks were on the bench, and more backups were making winning plays.

And no one was more surprised than the Pittsburgh Steelers. Planning to win the AFC Central title in Houston, where the Oilers’ Warren Moon was out with an injury to his throwing hand, the Steelers were eliminated from the playoffs by a substitute quarterback, Cody Carlson.

To Raider owner Al Davis, that meant, among other things, that Pittsburgh’s defense--rated No. 1 in the NFL--was confused by the quarterback change.

“Sometimes you’d rather play the old guy than the new guy,” Davis said, meaning that the Steelers know all about Moon but not Carlson, who, in four years as Moon’s backup, has played so infrequently that the NFL doesn’t have a book on him.

It was reminiscent of the year that the Rams, on a strange day at the Coliseum, were taken out of the playoffs, 14-7, by Minnesota Viking backup quarterback Bob Lee when Fran Tarkenton was hurt.

It was also reminiscent of what happened to the Vikings earlier Sunday. After blanking San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana in a 10-0 first half, the Vikings lost to backup Steve Young’s runs and passes, 20-17.

As another playoff season starts, one-third of the surviving teams have lost their quarterbacks to injury. Their replacements: Frank Reich of Buffalo, Jeff Hostetler of the New York Giants, Mike Tomczak of Chicago and Carlson.

It’s a different kind of season.

The Raiders, three times a Super Bowl champion, finished the 1980s losing their way in the division races, but winning most of their other big fights.

Winning those fights was essential. For one thing, the Raiders sued the NFL for a lot of money. For another, they needed a modern place to play.

And club owner Davis, who is neither a lawyer nor a politician, couldn’t find the time to battle the lawyers and politicians and build a team, too.

Naturally enough, the team suffered. As Davis fought and won his most important lawsuits--and as he scrapped and parried and feinted and slugged until the city’s leaders came around to his view of a 21st-Century Coliseum--the Raiders, in 1986-89, slipped to 8-8, 5-10, 7-9 and 8-8.

This season they are 12-4 and back in the playoffs.

Why?

--The explanation is that Davis, after winning the fights he had to win, is back where he belongs, and prefers to be, running the team again. He has shown that he has one of the better football minds among NFL owners.

--Not that Davis is mistake-free. He should have fired his last coach, Mike Shanahan, before the 1989 season, instead of during. It is unfair to any coach to so humiliate him in midseason. In 1988, Davis also erred in sending defensive end Sean Jones to Houston.

--But on balance, Davis, for the last 30 years, has been right. In his three decades in pro football, few others in any field have been so consistently successful. The Raiders’ new division title is just another link in a long chain.

In the fourth quarter Sunday, Raider quarterback Jay Schroeder could look back on what had been, for the most part, an unimpressive afternoon.

He wasn’t obligated at that time, however, to do any other looking back. In particular, there was no reason for Schroeder to look over his shoulder.

The Raiders weren’t about to bench him--as other No. 1 quarterbacks are often benched in such circumstances--and he knew it.

Schroeder was aware that the quarterback who started 15 games for the Raiders in 1988-89, Steve Beuerlein, was standing around in street clothes.

Schroeder was aware that the club would give him a chance to win the game--and the division title--himself.

And so, in the next 10 minutes he did just that. Relatively pressure-free despite his off day, Schroeder could rise and, suddenly, throw five consecutive strikes, the last for the winning touchdown.

Why?

--Schroeder is a different kind of competitor. A battler on the field, he doesn’t thrive in quarterback controversies, as he demonstrated in Washington, where, after a Pro Bowl year in 1986, he went steadily downhill when the Redskins rotated him with other quarterbacks, including Super Bowl winner Doug Williams.

--Accordingly, when the Raiders decided to use Schroeder instead of Beuerlein this season because of Schroeder’s stronger arm, they also decided to avoid a quarterback controversy by simply keeping Beuerlein out of sight. They first played the exhibition season without him, and he hasn’t been called on since.

--Beuerlein, however, was signed to a Raider contract. He has been around since September. If Schroeder had broken an arm in Buffalo or Miami, Beuerlein would have become the starter, with Vince Evans remaining as one of the NFL’s most useful backups.

Two of the three teams that have any chance to eliminate the San Francisco 49ers this winter--if that doesn’t sound too improbable--will meet again Saturday at Philadelphia when the Washington Redskins play the Eagles.

This is a bye week for the other NFC leaders, the 49ers and New York Giants.

Going into his third game against Washington this season, Philadelphia Coach Buddy Ryan, for a change, doesn’t sound too hopeful.

“We probably match up better with a couple of other teams than we do with Washington,” Ryan said.

In their two regular-season games this season, the Redskins won on their field, 13-7, the Eagles on theirs, 28-14.

Making the postseason is getting to be old hat to the Eagles, who in 1988 lost a first-round game in a Chicago fog, 20-12, then lost last year to the Rams, 21-7.

Their quarterback, Randall Cunningham, is charging those losses to having the wrong goal.

“It seems to me we were content by getting to the playoffs,” Cunningham said. “(This year) we’re not content.”