PRO FOOTBALL / BOB OATES : THE NFL PLAYOFFS : Raiders Were Able to Fine-Tune Running Game in Short Run

For most of the season, the Raiders have been a big-play running team, getting a series of long gains from Bo Jackson and Marcus Allen.

But they haven’t been able to control the ball with their running game.

They haven’t, that is, until Sunday, when behind one of the NFL’s better lines, they ran down the Cincinnati Bengals, 20-10, before a Coliseum crowd of 92,045.

To advance to Sunday’s AFC final in Buffalo, the Raiders also needed a big game from their passer, Jay Schroeder, and they got that, too.

Parlaying 80-yard drives in the second and fourth quarters, Schroeder threw touchdown passes of 13 and 41 yards.

But when you contemplate the site of next week’s game--an Arctic late-January stage in Upstate New York--what the Raiders needed most was a tuneup of their running game.

Which Allen and his blockers provided. Jackson left in the third quarter with a hip injury after gaining 77 yards in six carries.

Allen finished with 140 yards in 21 carries as the Raiders netted 235, an average of 7.3.

Asked if he felt the pressure of going it mostly alone at halfback, Allen seemed surprised.

“The Gulf crisis, that’s pressure,” he said.

The Bengals are a little weak on defense--there were no Reggie Whites or Bruce Smiths in their defensive line--but the Raiders beat the Central Division champions with a slightly different formula this time: big passes and ball-control runs.

The next question is whether the Raiders showed enough to get them safely through Buffalo and into the Super Bowl Jan. 27 in Tampa, Fla., where they were a winner the last time they were in the Super Bowl. It was also the last time the game was played in Tampa.

To beat the Bills, who defeated Raiders, 38-24, in October, it seems probable that Coach Art Shell will require more offense than his players have shown in their past two starts. The Raiders played only a quarter of good football Dec. 30, coming from behind to edge San Diego, 17-12, before they were held to two touchdowns Sunday by a crippled Cincinnati club.

The truth is that the Raiders offensively are not a Super Bowl team. They have a championship offensive line with Don Mosebar, Steve Wisniewski and other veterans, they have championship receivers, championship runners and a quarterback who makes some championship plays.

But not enough happens when the Raiders have the ball. Their offense is updated 1955 and their quarterback always seems to be just hanging on. Offensively, they will need a little luck in those Buffalo snowdrifts.

Defensively the Raiders have a team that could shut down the San Francisco 49ers, if it ever comes to that.

With defensive end Greg Townsend, linebacker Jerry Robinson, cornerbacks Terry McDaniel and Lionel Washington and steady performers at other positions, the Raider defense is effective enough.

But on offense, the Raiders are not a touchdown machine.

A major difference between the Raiders and Bills is that the Buffalo coaches have overhauled their offense this season.

With their 1989 offense, the Bills couldn’t have won a shootout in the snow against Miami’s Dan Marino, as they did Saturday when they defeated the Dolphins, 44-34.

In 1988-89, when Coach Marv Levy turned the Bills around after several seasons in or near the cellar, they were an ultraconservative team resembling this season’s Chicago Bears or New Orleans Saints.

Both times they made the playoffs, but there they learned that it is difficult to win playoff games playing conservative football. It is difficult to rally against good defenses with play-action passes.

In the 1988-89 playoffs, with a first-class quarterback in Jim Kelly, the Bills tried to throw the ball. But they discovered that to be productive, passing has to be practiced in the regular season.

So this season they practiced it. In a pass-oriented no-huddle offense, Kelly fired away to All-Pro Andre Reed, Raider castoff James Lofton and, among others, new tight end Keith McKeller.

And the Bills’ success passing made All-Pro Thurman Thomas an even more successful running back, as was clear in the victory over the Dolphins.

The Raider defense will be more difficult for Kelly to solve than Miami’s was. Even with good footing early in the game, the Dolphins didn’t put much of a rush on Kelly and their coverage wasn’t world-class.

But few teams this season have the ability to score points like the Bills. It’s a fortunate thing the Raiders have played them once. They might lose again, but they shouldn’t be surprised by what they see.

The emergence this week of a running-passing quarterback, Jeff Hostetler, means that the New York Giants might be harder on the 49ers Sunday than they were Dec. 3. That’s when they lost with Phil Simms in Candlestick Park, 7-3.

Presumably, the Giants will bring the same stifling defense to Candlestick, the one that held 49er quarterback Joe Montana to one good pass.