This Rumor Is True: Esiason, Jets Flying : Pro football: Quarterback will lead NFL’s No. 1-ranked offense against Raiders today at the Coliseum.

It started as a whisper, but grew into a roar.

It started as a rumor, but grew into an accepted fact around much of the league.

Psst, did you hear? Boomer Esiason’s arm is shot.

After nine years as the quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals, three Pro Bowl selections and one Super Bowl appearance, Esiason, at 32, had to prove himself all over again.

He knew it wasn’t going to be in Cincinnati, where he lost his starting job to David Klingler last season.

There were three teams Esiason was interested in playing for: the Raiders, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he would be reunited with Sam Wyche, his former coach in Cincinnati, and the New York Jets, where he would be reunited with friends and family back in his hometown of East Islip, N.Y.

But first, there was the matter of that arm.

“I can remember vividly being in Los Angeles around Super Bowl time,” Esiason said. “This guy on the radio was saying, ‘Well, the Raiders shouldn’t be getting Esiason. His arm’s bad. He’s been injured.’ And I was (thinking), ‘Where is this guy getting his information from?’

“I even offered to go work out for teams just so I could show them that all of those things that were being said were out of whack.”

Neither the Jets nor the Raiders believed the rumors.

Both went after Esiason. New York got him for a third-round draft choice. Negotiations with the Raiders never got down to a specific draft pick, team official Steve Ortmayer said at the time.

With Esiason at the controls, the Jets come into the Coliseum for today’s game against the Raiders with the No. 1 offense in the NFL, averaging 414 yards.

And Esiason has accounted for the majority of that total, passing for more than 300 yards in two of his four games with New York. He also had a 297-yard day.

Against the Miami Dolphins, Esiason threw passes that traveled 51 and 46 yards in the air.

He completed his last five passes against Miami and his first 13 against the New England Patriots the next week to give him 18 in a row. That set a Jet record and was the third-longest streak in NFL history.

Overall, Esiason has completed 68.5% of his passes for 1,206 yards and nine touchdowns, with four interceptions.

New York’s leading receiver is Rob Moore, who has caught 20 passes for 308 yards, but the rising star is tight end Johnny Mitchell, who has caught 16 passes for 305 yards.

Mitchell caught seven passes last week against the Philadelphia Eagles for 146 yards and three touchdowns.

Last season, Jet tight ends caught one touchdown pass.

While the New York offense has been moving in high gear, the Raider offense has nearly ground to a halt.

Starting quarterback Jeff Hostetler has been hobbled because of a sprained ankle that forced him out of last week’s game and made him ineffective for much of the previous game. Nick Bell, designated as the starting tailback before the season, has yet to play. He first struggled to get over a hamstring injury and now has a sprained ankle that could force him to sit out today.

With these two key injuries and an offensive line that has surrendered a dozen sacks in the last two games, the Raiders have dropped to 28th in total offense, last in the NFL.

So the game will feature the best and worst offenses in the league.

A healthy Hostetler might be able to close that gap and make a difference for the Raiders.

A healthy Esiason has already made a difference for the Jets.

And that’s no rumor.

Raider Notes

Jet center Jim Sweeney and right guard Dwayne White might sit out today because of ankle injuries. . . . The Raiders are expecting a crowd of about 45,000. . . . This is only the third time the Jets have played the Raiders since the club moved to Los Angeles in 1982. The Raiders won at the Coliseum in 1985, 31-0, and also beat the Jets, 14-7, in Giants Stadium in 1989 in Art Shell’s first game as the Raiders’ coach.