THE NFL / BOB OATES : It Simply Isn’t Smart to Try to Sit on Lead Against Kelly’s Bills

Most football players who conclude that they have the Buffalo Bills beaten--even when the Bills are two or three touchdowns down--live to regret it.

On a bad day, the Buffalo offense is potentially so explosive that it is fatal for any opponent to think the game is over until it’s over.

Buffalo’s Jim Kelly has proved for at least the last two years that he has what it takes to score faster than any quarterback in the league.

Kelly can miss the target often, as he did Sunday, and still complete the decisive passes eventually because the Buffalo no-huddle machinery moves so quickly from one play to the next.

It’s arguable whether Kelly today is the NFL’s best quarterback. But with Andre Reed at one receiving position, James Lofton at the other and Thurman Thomas in the backfield, he’s the quarterback who has the most help, as he and they demonstrated once again in their 30-27 overtime victory.

Although the Raiders scored first and were ahead all the way until Buffalo caught them at the bitter end, they were never a good bet to win after the Bills’ two big special-team plays in the first half.

The points scored by the Bills as a result of the 91-yard kickoff return by Al Edwards and the 59-yard punt return by Clifford Hicks kept them in the game until Kelly could get untracked.

He was going to get untracked sooner or later--as he did in the Super Bowl last winter. He had that one won, too, until his kicker blew it.

A unique passer: In the second half Sunday, Raider quarterback Jay Schroeder threw only four passes. The only two he threw in the last 17:34--the fourth and fifth quarters--were the two killer interceptions at the end.

Why did the Raiders keep him under wraps?

It can be explained in only two ways:

Either they’re afraid to use Schroeder, who has scattered a number of bad passes this season, or, as play-callers, they aren’t very good.

Against a Buffalo team that is capable of point-a-minute football in any 15- or 30-minute period of any game, it makes no sense whatever to sit on leads of 10 points or two touchdowns, or even three.

As play-callers, are the Raiders really this uninspired?

Or do they really have so little faith in Schroeder?

If the latter, they should think about a quarterback change some day soon. If the former, they should begin studying up.

There isn’t a quarterback like Schroeder anywhere else in the league today. In any game, he is capable of throwing a complete assortment of more good passes and bad passes than any peer.

Schroeder’s third-down strikes in the first half couldn’t have been better aimed by Kelly. The 78-yard play to Tim Brown came on third down, as did Schroeder’s passes to Marcus Allen and Ethan Horton setting up the Raiders’ second touchdown.

And in the third quarter, when the Raiders called on Schroeder to throw only twice, his shot to Mervyn Fernandez--gaining 59 yards to set up their last touchdown--came at a difficult moment, on third and seven.

By contrast, Schroeder’s two late-game interceptions, though not the worst he has thrown this year, were bad enough. Terrible, in fact.

Not much Thomas: Considering what they were playing against, most of the Raiders played well enough to win.

Two of Buffalo’s finest, defensive end Bruce Smith and halfback Thurman Thomas, were non-factors for much of the afternoon.

Smith, probably the NFL’s most famous defensive player, is stronger against passes than runs, so the Raiders got him almost all the time on running plays regardless of where he lined up--usually against tackle Bruce Wilkerson or, in the first half, Steve Wisniewski.

On pass plays, Smith was double-teamed out of the game.

As for Thomas, he was imaginatively doubled-covered most of the time, too, taking him out of the game on all but a handful of Buffalo pass plays.

It isn’t Thomas’ catches that make so much trouble for NFL defensive teams, it’s his running after the catches.

In forcing Kelly to throw to tight end Keith McKeller instead, the Raiders were playing smart defense. Smart enough to win. They lost, but for other reasons.

Said Raider Coach Art Shell: “We just didn’t make the plays toward the end of the game like we did earlier.”

One reason for that: Buffalo was defensing the Raiders to run. Football is a simple game to play, defensively, whenever you know for a fact that the other side isn’t going to pass--or isn’t going to run.

The rule of thumb is this: Although one-dimensional football is hard to play well on offense, it’s great to play against.

And although the Raiders aren’t out of the Super Bowl race yet, they will never get there without throwing the ball.

Shell will get two more weeks to practice them up before the playoffs begin.

Said Raider safety Eddie Anderson: “Any time you play a team like (the Bills), you have to try to kill them when you can.”

That’s exactly the formula the Raiders failed to use.

Without a mixture of runs and passes, it’s hard to “kill” any good team.