His Job Is a Snap, but All the Glory Is Put Behind Him

Who would you say has the record for the most completed passes on the Raiders in recent history?

Jeff Hostetler? Don’t be silly! He’s been here less than a year and he throws, what, 30 passes a game? Tops 35?

My guy might have that many in a quarter.

He has never thrown an interception, and, as a matter of fact, when he throws an incompletion, it’s headline stuff. He completes a pass every play. He’s the only passer in the game who never gets booed.

Give up? Well, how about Don Mosebar?

Who? you gasp. Now, Don Mosebar is not a quarterback. He doesn’t complete his passes in the end zone for touchdowns. But if he misses his receiver, no one else will get one in the end zone, either.

If a quarterback completes 60% of his passes, he’s a legend. But Mosebar’s completion average has to be 100%.

To be sure, if his “completions” were laid end to end, they would be outdistanced by one bomb from, say, Jay Schroeder. The difference is, Mosebar’s don’t go over the heads of the receivers.

Don Mosebar is the center on the Raiders. Don’t blame yourself if you didn’t know it. Being center on an NFL team is slightly better, in terms of recognition, than being a forest ranger in the Canadian Rockies, or a railroad crossing guard in Saskatoon.

It’s not a position, it’s a hide-out. It would be a great spot for a guy on the lam. You don’t have to go to Brazil anymore when you make off with the bank’s money. You get a job in the middle of an offensive line. No one would ever think to look there. And your next-door neighbor would have no idea what you did for a living. Some people thought that’s where they would find Jimmy Hoffa.

Centers are the Foreign Legion of football. They shouldn’t have to give their correct names. You should get two weeks in Hawaii if you can name the starting centers on any four pro teams. These guys are not only anonymous, they’re invisible. Defensive ends and tackles get sacks. Defensive statistics are kept--numbers of tackles, assisted tackles and so forth. Centers have nothing to show for it but lumps and stitches.

Offensive linemen are like janitors. As taken for granted, as necessary and as unobtrusive. They never get their pictures in the paper. They are the foot soldiers of the game. In a war, they would be the guys cutting the barbed wire for an offensive. They would be the ones creeping on their bellies, trying not to make any noise.

They last longer than a mortgage or boardinghouse meat. They have to be highly disciplined, highly dependable and not very excitable human beings. The kinds of guys who would show up with a lunch pail and a hammer until it was time to get a gold watch.

Defensive backs can be risk-takers, improvisers, unpredictable. So can wide receivers. Linebackers can swoop and blitz and take chances. But the coach wants to know right where to find his center at all times.

“Why do centers last so long?” a writer challenged Mosebar in the locker room after the Raiders’ 27-23 victory over Seattle on Sunday. “I don’t know,” Mosebar shot back. “If you find out, tell me.”

The Raiders have had, like, three centers in the whole history of the franchise--Jim Otto, Dave Dalby and Don Mosebar. They’ve had, like, 20 quarterbacks, including backups, in that time.

The Raiders made Don Mosebar a center. At USC, he was a tackle, a big part of “Student Body Right” under Coach John Robinson. One of those guys knocking people down for those Heisman winners on the Trojans.

Centers last a long time for the same reason watchmakers do. It’s a skill position. You can’t make too many mistakes. Experience is critical. You have to be patient, immovable. Your office, where you spend your day, is cramped, poorly lit and claustrophobic. It’s apt to be very crowded when you snap the ball. You have to stall the pass rush, which is a little like trying to hold off a stampede of buffalo in a thunderstorm.

“It isn’t as if it’s injury free,” Mosebar says. “I’ve had eight surgeries--three ankles, one knee, three backs and one elbow. You can get hurt real easy holding off a 300-pound tackle who hates quarterbacks.”

The offensive line is like the Secret Service. And the quarterback is the President. Sacrifice is a way of life. The worst sight a center can see is his quarterback lying under a blanket of pass rushers.

Mosebar doesn’t even get to pick his opponent. The defenses dictate which 300-pounder tries to stuff his helmet over his eyes.

It used to be worse. Back in the old days of the single wing, or even the shotgun, the center had to line up with his head upside-down between his legs, peering back. Today, Mosebar can keep his head up, looking at the opposition for telltale tendencies while sending the ball back to the hands underneath his buttocks. Unless he’s centering for a punt, that is. Then, he is as helpless as a tackling dummy hanging on chains.

Mosebar is a blue-eyed, blond-haired 6-foot-6 guy with a brush cut, a more or less chronic scab over the bridge of his nose where somebody knocks the helmet every Sunday. He walks the walk of a guy whose leg hurts when it’s going to rain. He smiles a lot, but, of course, if he walked up to somebody in a bar and said he had played 12 years with the Raiders, they would look at him suspiciously before saying, “Oh, yeah? Did you know Marcus Allen?”

He has snapped for Jim Plunkett, Dan Pastorini, Marc Wilson, Steve Beuerlein, Rusty Hilger, Schroeder, Vince Evans, Todd Marinovich and Hostetler. The running backs--Allen, Bo Jackson, Eric Dickerson, Roger Craig--have come and gone. But Mosebar is still the one with the football out there.