Raiders Play Shellball: Run and Don’t Shoot : Pro Football: As other NFL teams go high tech, Shell goes back to basics. In fact, back to 1950s basics.

Art Shell will never be confused with run-and-shoot innovator Mouse Davis. Moose Davis, maybe.

So, while the league is being wooed with high-octane fumes in Houston and Buffalo, the Raiders are beating a path back to football’s dark ages.

The Oilers and Bills, the hottest offenses in the business, remove their fullback from the game and insert a speedy fourth receiver.

In Sunday’s 16-13 victory over Denver, the Raiders removed their fullback and added an extra 300-pound offensive tackle, tipping the right side of the line to about half a ton of blocking flesh.

With this, Shell unveiled his team’s blueprint for the rest of the season. It’s going to get ugly at times, as at the end of Sunday’s first half, for instance, when the Raiders were booed off the field while trailing, 6-3.

They won’t write poetry about Shell’s offense, or sing songs. But more times than not, someone is going to absorb medical costs in trying to stop it.

You don’t like this brand of football, tailback Roger Craig slamming into the line of scrimmage 27 times for 99 yards?

Shell suggests you get your own team.

“I’m not trying to satisfy anyone about whether or not this offense is archaic, or whether we don’t have any jazz, pizazz, whatever it is,” Shell said. “I’m not here for that. I’m here to win football games.”

Some would suggest that’s not enough in L.A., the entertainment capital. Chuck Knox won five consecutive division titles with the Rams in the 1970s with a similar philosophy but was eventually branded a bore and fired.

Shell, though, is not the tinsel type. He is a Hall of Fame left tackle and that’s the legacy he brings to the Raiders’ offense.

It was never more evident than in Sunday’s game, when Craig, a starting tailback for eight years in San Francisco, carried the ball a career-high 27 times in his first Raider start.

Craig, the best receiving back in NFL history with 512 receptions, did not have a pass thrown his way. Even Craig had suggested that the Raiders dump a few passes to him, for old times’ sake.

“It doesn’t matter if the guy is a leading receiver,” Shell fired back at reporters at Monday’s press briefing. “All I care about is winning. And if it means that we’re going to run Roger Craig 27 times to win the game, we’re going to do that. I’m not in the business of trying to satisfy anyone’s whims, or anyone’s ideas.”

In Shell’s mind, Sunday’s game was football at its best. His team controlled possession of the ball, which kept the Raider defense fresh on the sidelines.

It was the game of an offensive lineman’s dreams as the unit churned and chugged on 90-yard drives.

“It gets you going,” Shell said, knowing the feeling. “You get to banging and moving the ball. I’ve always felt offensive players have to be in better shape than defensive players. You want to control the ball, the clock. Then when your defense comes on, they’re really fresh. We’ve got a tough defense. If we can keep those guys fresh, we can be very tough.”

Shell said the infatuation with the run-and-shoot, from a fan’s standpoint, is understandable.

“I think people are (caught up with) the excitement of it,” Shell said. “They think it’s exciting to throw the ball a whole lot. I guess it is. But you have to do what you think is good for your team to win. If you’ve got the personnel for the run-and-shoot, then you run the run-and-shoot.”

But if the road to the Super Bowl runs through Buffalo or Houston, will “Shellball” be good enough? It wasn’t in last year’s AFC title game against the Bills, or in this year’s opener against the Oilers.

The Raiders’ mistake in those games might have been trying to keep up with the opposing offenses. If the Raiders can keep the ball away from explosive offenses with ground control, maybe their defense would stand more of a chance.

The New York Giants used the possession strategy to defeat Buffalo in Super Bowl XXV, although Scott Norwood’s missed field goal certainly helped in promoting the theory.

“I could be wrong,” Shell said. “But you show me a team in Super Bowl history that didn’t have the capability to run the football. Maybe one or two. Think back on that.”