Go Figure Raiders, He Can’t

So, it’s the first snap of the first series of the first quarter of the first Raider game of the season Sunday at the Houston Astrodome, and some large, ugly, smelly Oiler smacks the derrick side of his helmet into poor Jay Schroeder’s abdominal area, forcing L.A.’s quarterback out of the game and forcing L.A.’s coach to look behind him, swallow hard and send in. . . .

Todd Marinovich?

Hey, OK. Maybe this is where Todd wins back all his old admirers. Maybe he steps right up and buckles his chin strap and whips a left-handed fastball to Willie Gault on the fly along the sideline, whereupon Willie throws it into Gault-warp speed and outlegs the closest Oiler as though he were Carl Lewis competing in a foot race against, oh, John Candy.

Or Vince Evans?

Hey, OK. It’s pretty clear Vince is the guy to whom Art Shell would turn. And Vince would take a couple of gulps from his Geritol bottle, lace up his orthopedic shoes, squirt some oil on his joints like the Tin Man, then jog out there and guide the Raiders to score after score after score--sevens from Evans.

And before too much longer Schroeder would hop back to his feet, feeling swell, telling Shell he’s ready to go back in, but the coach keeps saying uh huh, yep, you bet, while Marinovich or Evans engineers the Raiders up and down the field, up and down, up and down, until even the most skeptical Raider watcher has to ask: “What was the name of that quarterback they traded?”

Steve Beuerlein?

Oh yeah, him. The guy who led the 1989 Raiders in pass completions, pass yardage, pass percentage, passes for touchdowns, blah, blah, blah. The same Steve Beuerlein who threw three touchdown passes against these same Houston Oilers when they played the Raiders in 1988. The same guy who passed for 375 yards against the Rams in one day’s work.

The same guy the Raiders dumped on in 1990, then dumped in 1991.

Whatever it was that Steve Beuerlein did--or didn’t do--that convinced the Raiders they would rather have some nothing-special Dallas Cowboy draft choice than him back in uniform, it is utterly mystifying and stupefying and, well, Raiderfying. To leave Vince Evans and Todd Marinovich as your only backup quarterbacks, well, the last time I saw guts like this, Demi Moore was on the cover of Vanity Fair.

The Raiders do things their own way; always have. And nothing will ever change that, unless Czar Al Davis is overthrown in a military coup. I can picture him now, standing atop a tank inside the Raider compound, rallying his forces, warning the junta that the plot to reinstate Greg Bell in the backfield and renegotiate Beuerlein into the fold will fail, sure as he is standing there.

Don’t ask me why the Raiders consider Beuerlein disposable in a profession where keeping a quarterback injury-free for four months is about as easy as keeping four-month-old cottage cheese fresh in a refrigerator. And don’t ask me why Bell finds himself equally perishable while Bo Jackson is injured, Marcus Allen is 31 and Roger Craig is not exactly fresh as a daisy, although I am not entirely certain how fresh NFL daisies need to be.

Joe Montana was put on the NFL’s injured-reserve list Tuesday; how would you like to lose him? San Francisco, at least, has Steve Young ready, willing and able as Montana’s understudy. All we know about Vince Evans and Todd Marinovich is that they are ready and willing.

Conclusion-jumping, however, can be dangerous, so the first thing we should do is wait and see whether the Raiders have another surprise to spring before the season opener, such as acquiring a quarterback from the World League of American Football’s Barcelona Dragons or London Monarchs or Dublin Doughnuts or whatever those goofy teams are called. The Raiders wouldn’t go with Evans and Marinovich for 14 or 15 weeks if Schroeder got hurt early, would they?

Maybe they would.

I gave up attempting to figure out the Raiders about the same time I gave up trying to figure out my income tax forms. Me, I would have kept Greg Bell. Maybe it was a money thing.

And Beuerlein? Hey, we are not talking about Randall Cunningham here. The guy is good, not great. But of all the quarterbacks the Raiders have strutted before the public since Jim Plunkett, it seems to me that Beuerlein might have been the most appealing to the public and most poised on the field, although the team certainly indicated last season that it can win with Schroeder in command.

I wish Beuerlein were around, just in case, but what the heck, the Raider predicament isn’t so bad. It could be Marc Wilson.