Reviving the Spirit of Raiders

One thing I like/don’t like about the Raiders is that they never do anything merely for the publicity. They didn’t draft Bo Jackson in the seventh round for his public-relations value, and they certainly didn’t hire Mike Shanahan as coach for his public-relations value. They picked them to put them to work.

So, when the Raiders lassoed Ronnie Lott, they didn’t do it to improve their image.

Nobody had ever accused Al Davis of being a cheapskate. Nobody had ever accused the Raiders of being afraid to take a chance on a player. Nobody ever demanded that the Raiders pursue Lott to show that they were serious about winning another Super Bowl. The Raiders already were serious people. They already had won the Super Bowl.

It’s the NFL team that used to play in Los Angeles that could definitely use a Lott a lot, but we long ago became accustomed to the silence of the Rams.

This is one old USC Trojan whom John Robinson really could have put to good use. But perhaps the Rams couldn’t top whatever the Raiders were offering, or perhaps Lott had long since made up his mind that if he couldn’t knock blocks off for San Francisco, the least he could do is go work for the organization that loves to employ aging, raging, scar-faced renegades who look as though they belong on Harley-Davidsons.

Off the field, Lott may be a charmer, but on the field, approaching his 32nd birthday, he still fears no evil as he enters the valley of death because he is still the meanest motor-scooter in the valley. The man was born to have a skull and crossbones on his helmet.

It hurt simply to watch the highlight reels of his greatest hits with the 49ers. Lott’s got a lot of Jack Tatum in him. He hits guys high and mighty. He hits guys clean and he hits them mean. Occasionally, he hits guys way too hard and much too late. But this ain’t the prom; it’s professional football.

“My job is to separate football players from the football,” Lott says.

Which he does viciously and deliciously. When players get hit by Ronald Mandel Lott, as the saying goes, they stay hit. USC presented Ronnie with a degree in public administration, and what he has done with it in the 10 years since graduation is publicly administer punishment to some of the NFL’s finest pass catchers and running backs.

Why the 49ers risked letting him go, who knows? Too old? Too tuckered out? It sure never seemed that way any time Lott went to work. He always seemed to be his frisky old self, still resembling the rookie who ran back three interceptions for touchdowns and wore a Super Bowl ring before his career was one season old.

Maybe the 49ers thought Lott was through, or maybe they gambled that he would never pull up stakes. If so, they gambled wrong, just as Cincinnati had gambled that Max Montoya would be a Bengal forever. Fred Smerlas got so bored with missing Super Bowls that before last season he split for San Francisco, a good idea at the time, until Buffalo reached the Super Bowl and San Francisco didn’t.

Far more quietly, Bill Pickel packed his bags the other day and headed for the New York Jets, after having been with the Raiders since 1983. As with Lott, this veteran tackle is giving that can’t-go-home-again cliche another beating, Pickel having been born in Queens and having played for Rutgers. The Raiders will miss him.

But this was no eminent, Hall of Fame-bound superhero, the way Lott was up by the Bay. Next to Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, this man epitomized the 49er success story. He was the backbone of a defense under-appreciated after all the attention given Montana, Rice, John Taylor and Roger Craig. In the end, even offensive lineman Randy Cross got as much recognition as Lott did.

He feels he has plenty of football left in him, that San Francisco made a mighty big mistake.

“I didn’t join the Raiders to be part of management,” Lott said. “I’m not coming to be the voice of experience or to be a coach on the field or anything like that, not just yet. I’m coming to play my position.”

If there is one thing the Raiders have been lacking from the old days, it is a mean and hungry look. Howie Long once said that after Lyle Alzado left, the Raiders were not quite the Raiders anymore, that they still had tons of talent but not quite the same fighting spirit.

Last season, the talent was definitely there. This season, Bo Jackson will not be, but Ronnie Lott will be. The Raiders aren’t getting any younger, but they just got a hell of a lot tougher.