THE NFL PLAYOFFS : Raider Schroeder’s Bandwagon Shuffles Off to Buffalo

“J ay, how does it feel, having been away for a while. . . ?”

“What do you mean ‘been away?’ I haven’t been away.”

“Away from the playoffs, Jay.”

“Oh.”

Jay Schroeder’s bandwagon, now leaving for Buffalo, still has plenty of good seats available.

Jump on.

So what’s the public’s opinion of Raider Schroeder now? Quarterback or drawback? Accurate or adequate? Superstar or sort-of-star? As good as anybody or as good as necessary? A long-needed leader or along for the ride? A minus or a plus? How should he be graded? A-minus or A-plus?

Go on. Be fair.

Give Jay an A.

This is his football team now, every bit as much as it is Marcus Allen’s or Howie Long’s or Bo Jackson’s or Greg Townsend’s. Many a Raider will tell you they never doubted this for an instant. One or two, meaning no disrespect, might confess that they did. Was Jay Schroeder good enough? And how good was good enough?

He was no Montana/Marino/Elway/Kelly in the minds of Monday-morning quarterbacks. Yes. Point made and accepted. Yet he also was no Rusty Hilger, no Marc Wilson, no beyond-his-prime Jim Plunkett. This much was known about Raider Schroeder. This much was a blessing.

What remained unknown was whether the job was his to lose. Or how often must the Raiders lose? Two games in a row, as they did to Kansas City and Green Bay? Three out of four, as when they edged Miami but lost to Kansas City again? How soon before Steve Beuerlein would shed his mufti and return to active duty? How soon before New Orleans caved in and granted Bobby Hebert’s wish to play in L.A.?

Never happened.

Jay Schroeder was, is and will be the quarterback of the Raiders, for 1990 and what remains of 1991. They owe their trip to the NFL’s final four to their quarterback as much as San Francisco does to Joe Montana. The Raiders were luckier than the Buffalo Bills or New York Giants in never having lost their quarterback to injury. Number 13 brought these silver-and-black cats nothing but luck.

Others feel good about him now.

He feels good about himself.

“My years with Washington, those were special,” Schroeder said Sunday, after his first start in a postseason game since January of 1987. “Those feelings come back to you. There’s nothing better than being in the playoffs. It’s--how can I put it? It’s great fun, that’s what it is.”

The Schroeder of yesteryear was a passer.

“I threw the ball for the Redskins 600-and-some times a year,” he recalled.

The Schroeder of yesterday was a passer, too.

He lobbed an on-the-fingertips, 41-yard touchdown pass to Ethan Horton--later giving Horton all the credit--to give the Raiders the points they needed to pull away from the Cincinnati Bengals, 20-10. He kept this drive alive with a 26-yard pop to Tim Brown on third and 20 in what Schroeder described--giving Brown all the credit--as “the biggest play of the day.”

Schroeder even came out throwing. He threw deep on L.A.’s first play, overshooting a wide-open Mervyn Fernandez. He threw on fourth and one, a knuckleball Horton couldn’t handle.

“You go for it on fourth and one, you’ve got the other team guessing the rest of the day,” Schroeder reasoned.

Could this be the same quarterback who had been throwing only 15 times a game? This was hardly Warren Moon taking snaps for the Raiders. This wasn’t even the bombs-away Schroeder of bygone Washington days who used “Hogs” as bodyguards and “Smurfs” as targets. That Schroeder was a blond bombshell.

But by the time he left the District of Columbia, the passing game and the hearts of red-blooded Redskin fans both belonged to Doug Williams, and Coach Joe Gibbs had a promising kid named Mark Rypien in reserve, and the quarterbacks needed a lineman the caliber of Jim Lachey in front of them more than they needed another quarterback standing behind them.

So, away Schroeder went, with baggage that included Gibbs’ assessment that the quarterback’s accuracy and consistency would have to improve considerably if he was ever again to experience a Super Bowl as anything but a spectator.

Well, after pitching a couple of balls high and outside, Schroeder turned sharp Sunday. He threw strikes. The pass to Brown was particularly lovely. The pass to Horton was perfectly led. Nothing wobbled in the wind. Nothing got stuck in Schroeder’s throat. The passes were right where they had to be. The passer was right when he had to be.

He passed the credit, too.

“Tim Brown did all the work. I just threw it.”

“That was just a great route Ethan Horton ran. I’m proud of him.”

The images that endure, though, are of Jay Schroeder celebrating his success, doing that piston-fist pump a la Kirk Gibson after the touchdown pass to Horton, standing proudly in his lucky zebra-striped Raider cap on the sideline, taking exception in the locker room to any suggestion that he had “been away.”

Jay Schroeder might have been away, in a way.

But this is his team now, and Los Angeles his town. He has arrived. He is here. He has never been more here.