Their Rushing Attack Is Invisible No More

Harvey Williams, hands on hips, is standing smack dab on the 50-yard line, feeling fine. His football team has finally won a home game--first time all season--and a Raider (him) has finally rushed for 100 yards--first time all season--which explains why guys are hanging across the Coliseum railing, calling, “HAR-vey! HAR-vey!”

Quick as a bunny, Harvey ran and ran and ran. This was his first start in the backfield since becoming a Raider and he hippity-hopped 27 times for 107 yards and a touchdown, leaving footprints all over the Atlanta Falcons. For someone who gained two yards in the first quarter, Williams has just run wild.

At last, an opportunity for Harvey to show what he could do. “I don’t know about the people around the country,” he says to a TV camera immediately after the game, basking in the afterglow, “but I know what I can do, and the Raiders know what I can do.”

With that, he runs off, waving to his new fans.

Passing. Passing. Passing. That’s all anybody ever praised about the Raider offense. More and more it irritated Williams, who said, “I take it real personal. Every time you flip the TV on, they’re saying the L.A. Raiders don’t have a running game, the L.A. Raiders don’t have a running game. You get sick of that stuff.”

When Sunday’s game began, the Raiders didn’t have a running game. No one from the organization had rushed for 100 yards in nearly two years, since Eric Dickerson did so Nov. 29, 1992, at San Diego. Even worse, no one on the current Raider roster other than Williams had 100 yards total all season, and it took Harvey until the seventh game to even crack the lineup.

Art Shell doesn’t equate starting with succeeding. A few days ago, asked again if the rapidly improving Williams would finally get to start, Shell’s reply to a reporter was, “This is important to you, isn’t it?”

Well, no. Yet even at the end of a full quarter Sunday, there seemed to be something lacking in the Raider backfield--namely motion. First carry, Williams was stopped for no gain. Second carry, Williams was stopped for no gain. Last play of the quarter, Williams slashed for two yards. Total Raider rushing yardage for the quarter: two.

Then things picked up. Williams began the second period by catching a short pass from Jeff Hostetler, one of eight--yes, eight-- he caught Sunday. (Williams now ranks second on the Raiders in pass receptions, behind only Tim Brown.)

By the time he skirted right end for a one-yard touchdown, outrunning the Falcons to the pylon, Williams was feeling more useful. He had waited so long for some real work. He had wanted to justify the Raiders’ faith, for rescuing him from a situation that Williams considered a personal hell.

“Like I said before, I should have been here on Draft Day,” Williams said.

Oh, how he hated those wasted seasons with the Chiefs. How he resented the Kansas City coach, Marty Schottenheimer, for putting his whole career on hold.

“All those times, me saying, ‘Marty, give me the ball. Give me the ball.’ And him saying, ‘Oh, just wait your turn.’

“Nobody’s ever given me anything. That’s why I am so happy to be standing here with the silver and black on. I was promised in Kansas City that I would get a true opportunity. But I wasn’t promised anything here. I was lied to in Kansas City. If they were straight with me, I’d have handled it. I’m a man. Al Davis didn’t promise me anything but a chance. Art Shell, same thing. I owe them and I want to repay them.”

He did so by leading the Raiders in rushing at New England, at Miami and again against Atlanta. On third and two Sunday, instead of passing, the Raiders gave the ball to Williams, who went over left tackle for three yards and a first down. An actual rushing first down. And on the next play, Hostetler threw to Tim Brown for a 20-yard touchdown.

Run and pass. What a concept.

“Everybody on the line got excited,” Williams said. “They started saying, ‘We’re going to get you a hundred. We’re going to get you a hundred.’ (Right guard) Kevin Gogan was really pumped up. He was more excited than I was.”

Gogan blocked last year for Emmitt Smith.

“See, it has to be 50-50 if you’re going to go to a Super Bowl, half running and half passing,” Williams said. “The Dallas Cowboys showed that. That’s what we’ve got to do if we’re going to get this ship turned around.”

The Raiders came pretty close to half and half Sunday.

Thirty-one rushes. Thirty passes.

When he ran off the field after his 27th and final carry, Williams ran right into his coach.

Shell asked, “You tired?”

Williams answered, “No. I can carry it 10 more times.”

Laughing about that afterward, Williams was thankful that he could finally pull his weight and volunteered to carry more, more, more. But after further review, he also said, “If I don’t get the ball none of the time and we win, I’m happy.” Which was better than getting the ball none of the time and being in Kansas City.