Raiders Showing a New Wrinkle

Their West Coast Offense increasingly impressive, the Oakland Raiders have five beatable opponents ahead in December, meaning that their young coach, Jon Gruden, the man with the thousand faces, is in line to become a playoff star this winter and maybe a Super Bowl star.

To most football fans, the West Coast means a short-pass offense. But when Gruden showed off the Raiders (8-2) in the land of the Giants last Sunday, the New York fans must have noticed that, as manipulated by Raider quarterback Rich Gannon, the West Coast is more than that.

It’s an offense that could flatten the Giants in a rainstorm, 28-10, by throwing when the New York defense was thinking run and running when a pass seemed imminent. The Giants meantime set out pointedly to run. In a clash of football styles, the running team failed. And Gruden loved that. You could see it in every change of facial expression.

Giants Run

The game plan as written by the Giants before the Raider game named two good running backs, Tiki Barber and Ron Dayne, as the hammers with which to beat Oakland into submission. On the other side of the ball, the Giant defensive team conspired to keep Oakland ‘s Gannon from passing to his two nimble targets, Tim Brown and Jerry Rice.

So on the first scrimmage play of the afternoon, the defensive Giants, conditioned to regard their mission one-dimensionally, rushed passer Gannon with every man they could muster just as Gannon slipped the ball to the Raiders’ best running back, Charlie Garner. Before the Giants saw him, Garner was 10 yards away; and before they caught him, he’d gained 38.

And that’s the way it went, Oakland running against New York’s pass-defense alignments and passing when the Giants lined up against the run. By halftime, after Brown, on a first-down play, had raced 31 yards with a 15-yard Gannon pass down the middle, it was 21-3.

And all that while, the Giants, when they had the ball, sent Barber or Dayne into stacked Raider defenses. By the end, Barber, still running with distinction on a muddy field, had 124 yards, but you don’t beat a good West Coast team that way. Nor with the wild passes that the Giants, like most running teams on a losing day, were throwing at the end.

Tougher Schedule

The San Francisco 49ers, a similarly organized West Coast Offense team and similarly 8-2 in the standings, are face to face with a tougher December than Oakland foresees--in part because they’ll shortly get the St. Louis Rams and Miami Dolphins back to back after Buffalo tonight. But in a 40-21 romp at Indianapolis last Sunday, the 49ers, who originated the West Coast 20 years ago and rode it to a record five Super Bowl triumphs, worked it with memorable facility.

On passing downs--with the Colts in pass-defense alignments--49er halfback Garrison Hearst ran for two touchdowns. It was second and seven when, first, he darted through for 28 yards, scoring easily. It was third and 12 when he scored again, running free for 43 yards.

By comparison, it had been first and goal for San Francisco at the Colt 5-yard line--a running down for the NFL’s host of running teams--when quarterback Jeff Garcia passed to wide receiver J. J. Stokes for the 49ers’ first touchdown.

On offense, the Raider approach is wholly different from that of the Rams--who would like to throw on every down. The Rams also like longer passes.

Establish Offense

When Bill Walsh introduced the West Coast Offense to a startled group of NFL opponents in the early 1980s, his lineup was arranged inflexibly with a quarterback, tight end, two wide receivers and two running backs. On every down, the 49ers came at you that way.

There were almost never four wide receivers on those San Francisco teams or two tight ends or one running back or empty backfields or shotgun formations.

On first and 10 or first and one or third and 10, Walsh’s players fooled most defenses the same way precisely: After feigning either the run or the pass, they threw to one or another of the same five guys or they ran one or the other of the two backs.

Later, because they had thrown so often on first down, Walsh was asked whether he aimed to establish the pass--separating himself from every other NFL coach, who aimed to establish the run. “No, our goal is to establish the offense,” Walsh said.

And that’s still the West Coast goal. Much else has changed--for example, today’s West Coast fullbacks rarely carry the ball--but the 49ers, Raiders, Packers and other West Coast teams still aim to confuse, leading to a lot of first-down passes. Keep looking for those.

The Indianapolis team, with the best quarterback on the field, Peyton Manning, played football an entirely different way in losing big to the 49ers Sunday with an offense that mostly attempted passes on passing downs (third and long) and runs on running downs (first down). Afterward, without naming names, Indianapolis Coach Jim Mora bitterly blamed Manning, who, in Mora’s view, was solely responsible for the three second-half interceptions that “gave them the game,” as he said. “It was pitiful.”

Those three interceptions were, however, thrown on third and 9, third and 7, and third and 16--when, every time, the 49er pass defense, with no worries that the Colts would run the ball, was positioned to obstruct every play. The three passes were all predictable because, on first down, the Colts had predictably run the ball each time for slim yardage--against 49er run-defense alignments --and because, in each instance, the Colts’ second-down plays had also failed, in part because it isn’t easy to advance the ball on second and long.

“Pitiful” was the right adjective but Mora applied it wrongly. His conservative, old-fashioned offense is killing a quarterback who would be an All-Pro in Oakland or San Francisco or St. Louis had he got there before Gannon or Garcia or Kurt Warner.

Edge to Passers

Here’s what happens all too often to running teams in matchups with good West Coast teams which, like the 49ers and Raiders, are always prepared to either pass or run the ball on first down:

o A 10-yard penalty for holding, the kind of misplay that so frequently interrupts a running team, can be more easily overcome by a passer. o On, say, an 80-yard drive, a running team normally needs more plays than a passing team, meaning it has more shots at drive-aborting penalties and misplays.

o It’s obviously harder for running backs than passers to come up with the big plays that jar defensive teams. o It’s harder for running teams that fall behind to suddenly start passing because, as a rule, they haven’t been practicing pass plays that much. o It’s easy for good NFL defensive players to overload against a good running back if they expect him on firstdown or to double-cover the good pass receivers they expect on third down. o Though running teams may enter every game bravely, they aren’t mentally geared to play catch-up football. To the contrary, they are often mentally crushed by unforeseen disaster.

By contrast, a promising quarterback like Jeff Garcia or a veteran like Rich Gannon sees a potential disaster as a challenge, as an opportunity.

Three-Way Threat

The Pittsburgh Steelers, though rarely accused of playing West Coast football, are 8-2 and counting as they await the Minnesota Vikings today. Although the 4-6 Vikings are a case example of a West Coast team proving that offensive systems aren’t everything, or, as some critics say, anything, the Steelers are something else.

As they showed last Sunday when they made their way down to Tennessee and won, 34-24, the Steelers are embracing one Bill Walsh principle. They threaten on every play with a good passer, Kordell Stewart, and good runner, Jerome Bettis.

They’re even going Walsh one better--to those who remember Walsh’s days with four-time Super Bowl winner Joe Montana. For the Steelers actually have three simultaneous threats, including Stewart as a ballcarrier.

Stewart runs with the style and power of a good running back. He also throws with the accuracy of the NFL’s good passers. No other team has a quarterback who matches him as a running passer or passing runner.

All this has been true for many years. What’s different this season is that Pittsburgh Coach Bill Cowher is placing fewer restrictions on Stewart than he used to. He’s letting the man throw.

Almost everyone watching Kordell Stewart this year says the same thing: He’s finally become a passer. But that’s the wrong assessment. More accurately, he’s finally being allowed to play his game.

It’s hard to remember a prior Sunday in Stewart’s seven NFL seasons when, if green-lighted, he couldn’t have run for 50-plus yards and passed for 250-plus, as he did in Tennessee.

Someday, assuming Cowher continues to unleash him, you might even see Stewart in a Super Bowl.