PRO FOOTBALL / BOB OATES : New Vikings Give Four Exhibitions of Improvement

The three least significant facts about NFL exhibitions are, as a rule, the final score, the name of the winner and the name of the loser.

Thus, the Minnesota Vikings, who averaged 35 points this summer, won all of their games and held their opponents to six points--on two field goals--haven’t done anything yet.

“That and 29 cents will buy you a postage stamp,” Coach Howard Schnellenberger said Tuesday from the University of Louisville.

“However, looking at their new leadership, I suspect that the Vikings are on the rise,” he said, citing the new Minnesota coach, Dennis Green, and his two coordinators, Jack Burns and Tony Dungy.

Burns, who runs Green’s new one-back offense, spent four years with Schnellenberger.

The Vikings, some say, are the league’s most improved team this season. If that is so, these could be the reasons:

--For a long time, the Vikings have had more talent than most teams, often leading the league in Pro Bowl players. There are still eight Pro Bowl veterans on the club, including wide receiver Anthony Carter and defensive end Chris Doleman.

--Planning and organization are among Green’s strengths. He is a better organizer than Jerry Burns, the 1986-1991 Minnesota coach.

Since the mid-1980s, Minnesota fans have thought of the Vikings as a winner waiting to happen. This is the year, they say, not because the Vikings had a 4-0 summer, but because the talent appears to be there, needing only an organizer.

No-names: The most improved NFL quarterback this year, Minnesota fans say, is the Vikings’ Rich Gannon, who could be the quickest Viking scrambler since Fran Tarkenton.

It was Gannon’s speed, along with the passing accuracy he showed, that prompted the Vikings to trade No. 1 quarterback Wade Wilson to Atlanta.

They also waived Herschel Walker so they could promote halfback Terry Allen.

A team with a new quarterback and new running backs often looks like a new team, and that has been the perception of the Vikings.

“It isn’t so,” Green said. “This is about the same ballclub, except for four changes.”

Injuries, he said, led to the departure of tackle Keith Millard, now a Seattle Seahawk, and safety Joey Browner, now a Tampa Bay Buccaneer.

Walker, Wilson, Millard and Browner--four big names. But this year, Green said, two no-name quarterbacks will help the Vikings more. They are Gannon, of Delaware, and Sean Salisbury of USC.

Rypien rusty: According to Hall of Famer Joe Namath, now an NBC analyst, it takes four games to get a quarterback ready for the regular season.

“The (exhibition season) is more important to passers than anybody,” Namath said. “You don’t have to play all the way every night, but I always felt that you can’t get your timing down in less than four starts.”

The Washington Redskins’ Mark Rypien skipped two games as a holdout. And he looks it. He has the appearance of a player who needs about two more weeks of practice.

Unhappily for him and the Redskins, he will be getting it in the regular season. They open Monday night against a Super Bowl contender in Dallas, where they usually struggle in the best of times.

Road week: In an out-of-town doubleheader, the Rams will begin Knox Era II in Buffalo on Sunday before the Raiders open in Denver on Sunday night.

It won’t be easy for either of visiting teams.

The Rams and Bills are both one-back teams now, riding the NFL’s major new trend, but Buffalo fans are hard on visitors.

For starters, the Rams will have to fight their way through the screaming Buffalo tailgaters, the NFL’s largest and most intimidating group of party people, outside the stadium before the game.

“We love them,” Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly said.

For the Raiders, the Denver game will be a battle against another one-back team that has the best opening-day record in the league, a record the Broncos have padded to 19-12-1 by playing half the time in Mile High Stadium, where suffocation is always a threat to visitors.

Since their birth in 1960, the Raiders have the NFL’s second-best opening-day record, 19-13.

Schroeder is No. 2: It is sometimes said that the Raiders have everything but a quarterback. But if he doesn’t delight Raider fans, Jay Schroeder impresses statisticians.

Today’s Elias Sports Bureau report:

--Schroeder is 53-26--.671--in NFL starts. That puts him second in the league among the 28 opening-day quarterbacks.

--Rypien is the leader in NFL starts with a record of 33-13--.717.

--After playing some of his biggest games in Denver, Schroeder is well ahead of his Sunday opponent, John Elway, who is 81-48-1--.627 in Bronco starts.

Joe Montana of the 49ers, who won’t play this week, leads them all, but not by much. He is 100-39--.719 and two percentage points ahead of Rypien.

Vote for 49ers: The team to beat in the NFC this year, in the view of June Jones, Atlanta Falcon offensive coordinator, is San Francisco.

“The 49ers probably would have won it last year if (Atlanta) hadn’t beaten them twice in two wild games,” Jones said. “In one game, we got them on a Hail Mary pass.

“Last year, the 49ers finished 10-6. If they’d beaten us twice as usual, they’re in the playoffs and on their way.”

New tack: Team owners have a new view of the Minneapolis antitrust trial, as expressed by Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

Instead of waiting for the jury to come in, Tagliabue said, “(A settlement) would be in the best interests of (all concerned). The players have grossly inflated expectations as to what (would) follow a player victory.

“(For the union, a victory) just creates a new set of problems. The fight would just go on for years and years and years.”

The suing players--who want the right to free agency after four or five seasons--will be out of football by the time the case is finally settled, Tagliabue said, referring to the appeals process and other customary legal delays.

Doug Allen, NFL Players Assn. vice president, interpreting the commissioner’s remarks as a threat, recalled that, on the first day of the trial, Tagliabue predicted an owner victory and said: “I no longer see a need for (a settlement).”

Added Allen: “I find it ironic that Tagliabue has not only (changed position), but feels compelled now to threaten the players.”

Big void: For the first time in five years, the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday will be playing without Jerome Brown. Killed in a car crash this summer, Brown leaves a void that Mike Golic has been asked to fill.

Mike is Raider Bob Golic’s brother and a member of the family that sent three football players to Notre Dame, all on scholarship, in a decade.

Quote Department:

Jerry Glanville, Atlanta coach, on quarterback Chris Miller: “I don’t like to brag on my players, but he’s good enough to make people think I’m a good coach.”