President of Partner a Raider Idea Whose Moment Has Come

If you ask how the Raiders advanced to this season’s big tournament, in which they make their first appearance Sunday, we are able to reply they have done it for several reasons.

The first reason is, the Raiders have collected a lot of very good players. The other reasons don’t matter.

But it happens to be a fact that they have dredged from Jay Schroeder the kind of season they long have groped for from a quarterback--a season in which the same guy does all the passing, with reasonable accuracy.

It has been recent custom with the Raiders for more than one individual to do the passing, with accuracy not worth discussing.

But Schroeder settles in this season, starts all 16 games and throws all but two passes the Raiders throw.

He connects 54.5% of the time, but, more important, he gives the team a touch of stability it has been missing, and he reaffirms its faith in its ability to horse-trade, an art in which the Raiders take pardonable pride.

You must remember how they acquire this entertainer. In 1988, they proffer a blocking lineman named Jim Lachey to Washington, which gives up Schroeder in what never will be known as Washington’s greatest cerebral exercise.

It is whispered the Redskin coach doesn’t like Schroeder, and vice versa, always the thinnest reason for allowing talent to escape. You recall that the eminent philosopher, Sparky Anderson, who manages the great Cincinnati teams of the 1970s, confesses:

“Twenty-five percent of the players don’t like me, but I’ve got news for you--I don’t like them, either.”

And with this pronunciamento, Sparky goes on managing both those who like him and don’t, and he wins an awful lot of games with that club.

So with Schroeder, the Raiders capitalize on a personality problem in Washington to snatch a quarterback who, in his third year in Los Angeles, pulls the team together with balance not seen since the incumbency of Jim Plunkett.

But if Schroeder is the product of a good trade, the bagging of Bo Jackson is a tribute to creative packaging.

Bo is quiet, but he is humble. If Tampa Bay is trying to impress him with its independence, he impresses Tampa Bay with an option. He can play baseball.

He kisses Tampa Bay goodby. He also kisses football goodby, until such time a year later that the Raiders come along with a proposition his vanity can’t reject.

They tender a plan allowing him to play both baseball and football. And, slickering the whole NFL, which comes to believe Bo has become a baseball guy only, the Raiders wait coolly until the seventh round of the ’86 draft before taking him.

Mind you, 182 players are drafted ahead of Bo, who gets assurance from the Raiders they aren’t mad if he reports each year in October.

A 10-game football guy, Bo has given the Raider attack big carbonation. Bo has helped the Raiders, but not as much as football has helped Bo.

Becoming a two-sport artist in pro, a freak of nature, he gets rich, absurdly rich. He builds a commercial empire.

If he isn’t talked by the Raiders into playing football--even part time--he is just a .272 hitter today, stationed in left field for Kansas City.

Well, Bo dispenses a lively season for the Raiders in 1990. He does it, besides, playing second string. He says: “I only want to win,” which is the right thing to say, even if second-seeding embarrasses one and isn’t at all consistent with one’s position in life.

If there is yet another reason the Raiders have advanced as far as they have this season, it might be ascribed to a change in the club directory, in which Al Davis, troop leader, is listed today as “President of the General Partner.”

Up until now, we can’t recall encountering a President of the General Partner. It could be a first in American industry. A more likely assumption would be that if Davis is General Partner, Mrs. Davis is President of the General Partner.

But this little change obviously has given the team that winning edge recently missing. Victor Kiam calls himself “Chairman,” and look where he finished?

And Art Modell? He is “President and Owner” and he must be restrained today from going out the window.

Always in the forefront, the Raiders give us a President of the General Partner, and it is only a matter of time until the world follows suit.