Even the Experts Couldn’t Predict Raiders Would Bow Out in Blowout

Could anyone predict that the Buffalo Bills would rout the Raiders, 51-3, as they did Sunday in the AFC championship game?

Routs in championship games are relatively uncommon, but they happen. No one is prepared for such an eventuality.

Sid Gillman, the retired former coach of the Rams and San Diego Chargers, is acknowledged as one of the game’s most astute strategists.

Yet, Gillman was as puzzled as the man in the street over the relative ease in which the Bills dispatched the Raiders.

“A blowout is hard to understand,” Gillman said Sunday. “You have two championship teams that should be of basic talent and ability. There is no way to explain it in a game that should basically be even.”

Gillman discounts any strategic or emotional advantage Buffalo might have had.

“Preparation for a game of this type is one of the easiest experiences a coach can have because the players understand how important the game is, so concentration and everything that goes with good preparation is a cinch,” Gillman said.

Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly attacked the Raiders with a no-huddle offense, as he did the previous week in an opening playoff victory over Miami.

So that offensive nuance shouldn’t have surprised the Raiders.

“Their quick lineup (no-huddle offense) worked today just like it worked against Miami,” Gillman said. “We call it a speed drill, similar to the last minutes of a game.

“I’m sure with the intelligent coaching the Raiders have they prepared for every aspect of it, and there’s no reason to believe that a blowout like that can happen.

“It’s almost like going to practice and working a seven-on-seven drill where the quarterback throws to receivers with no rush.

“I’ll bet if you talked to Raider coaches before the game, they would say they were ready. What team wouldn’t prepare properly to get to the Super Bowl when there is only one game involved?”

Gillman believes that Buffalo had a distinct advantage over the Raiders at one position--quarterback.

“Buffalo had a much, much better quarterback,” Gillman said. “This is a game of quarterbacks, and you don’t know how important a quarterback is until you don’t have one.

“And everybody knew that Kelly was a great quarterback, and that Jay Schroeder had to rise to the occasion.

“He’s a good quarterback and has had some fine games, but he had to have his best game to compete with Kelly.”

Schroeder threw five interceptions, one less than the playoff record shared by three quarterbacks.

Even great quarterbacks have a bad day. Gillman should know. Norm Van Brocklin, who is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was his quarterback when the Rams played the Cleveland Browns for the NFL championship in 1955 at the Coliseum.

Van Brocklin threw six interceptions in that game as the Rams lost, 38-14. That’s a postseason game record he shares with the Frank Filchock of the New York Giants (1946) and Bobby Layne of the Detroit Lions (1954).

Gillman has also been on the plus side of blowouts in championship games. His Chargers beat the Boston Patriots, 51-10, in the 1963 American Football League title game in San Diego.

“I thought we had a good chance to win that game because we were a very good team,” said Gillman, adding that he didn’t have any notion the Chargers would win by such a wide margin.

“Boston ‘dogged’ more than any team in football (blitzing linebackers),” Gillman said. “We did a great deal of running and passing from motion, which threw their coverages off and we were able to destroy them. But nobody in his right mind would have predicted that score.”

Gillman said that Buffalo is the best team he has seen this year.

He added that Kelly called his own plays from the no-huddle offense, as he did against Miami.

“That isn’t too difficult because all you have to do is package the audible system (changing the play at the line of scrimmage),” Gillman said. “They also put in a couple of plays they hadn’t run before. I hadn’t seen them run the sweep before.”

Routs in playoff games are usually unexpected. In 1975, the Rams were gearing to play the Vikings in Minnesota, where they had lost bitter playoff games in freezing weather.

They didn’t like the prospect but were prepared. The only way they could avoid a trip there would be for Dallas, a wild-card team, to upset the Vikings on their home turf.

Dallas surprised the Vikings--and the Rams--by winning, 17-14. The Rams were ecstatic. They wouldn’t have to travel to Minnesota and would play the Cowboys at the Coliseum in the NFC championship game.

Dallas then routed the favored Rams, 37-7, and afterward the Ram players said they had a mental letdown because they were still congratulating themselves on their good fortune of not playing the Vikings on the road.

The most famous blowout is the Chicago Bears’ 73-0 victory over the Washington Redskins in the 1940 title game.

Like Sunday’s Bill-Raider game, there wasn’t any indication that a rout was imminent. The Redskins defeated the Bears, 7-3, earlier in the season.

BIGGEST MARGINS Biggest margins of victory in NFL postseason games:

73 Chicago (73) vs. Washington (0) 1940 NFL Championship 49 Oakland Raiders (56) vs. Houston (7) 1969 AFL Divisional Playoff 48 Buffalo (51) vs. L.A. Raiders (3) 1991 AFC Championship 46 Cleveland (56) vs. Detroit (10) 1954 NFL Championship 46 N.Y. Giants (49) vs. San Francisco (3) 1986 NFC Divisional Playoff 45 San Francisco (55) vs. Denver (10) 1990 Super Bowl