Schroeder, Raiders Face Big Test : Win Over Denver Today at Coliseum Would Put Them Back in Contention

Rumble, rumble, rumble, it’s time for a really big game in the AFC West.

That Raider debacle against the Atlanta Falcons?

A mosquito bite.

Monday night when the Seattle Seahawks plowed them under?

A little downer.

One way or another, it was all coming down to the twin showdowns at the Coliseum: today’s against the Denver Broncos and the season finale against the Seahawks Dec. 18. If the Raiders win those, someone is going to have to come up with at least a mild surprise to unseat them.

Of course, anyone who has seen the Raiders recently might wonder if they could hold their home-field advantage--some advantage, they’re 2-4--against a Girl Scout troop.

There’s an old saying, “You’re never alone with a schizophrenic.�

Meet the Raiders, whose defense climbed from 26th to 7th from weeks 5 to 11 . . . and then gave up 377 yards rushing to the Falcons and Seahawks.

Meanwhile their offense, with three Heisman Trophy winners and four other skill-position players earning $700,000 a year or more, has posted the lowest pass-completion percentage in this decade.

No wonder Coach Mike Shanahan isn’t promising the Broncos a world of hurt, or welcoming them to his house of pain. The pain Shanahan is most familiar with is being experienced locally . . .

Say, when his phone rings and he hears that peculiar Brooklyn-Dixie accent of Al Davis.

In this corner, wearing the silver and black . . .

Jay Schroeder returns from his 6 weeks off to reassume the No. 1 quarterback job.

He will have a running game that looked as if it was about to explode (Bo Jackson averaged 4.6 yards a carry), but which imploded instead (Bo got 56 yards in 22 carries against Atlanta and Seattle, his worst pro games, including the one in New Orleans when he left after 2 plays). The consensus is that Bo has lost the rhythm, gone long-gainer crazy, and needs to start thinking less and just hit up in there.

Schroeder will have to show he has command of a new system and end his own year-long slump, which encompasses his last half-season in Washington.

Shanahan hopes his defense returns from wherever it has been, too.

And now for the team with the momentum . . .

Last week the Broncos blew out the Rams, who aren’t that bad. Does Dan Reeves think they’re finally over the hump?

“I doubt it,� Reeves drawled without hesitation.

He won’t get fooled again.

That’s some hump. The Broncos had supposedly cleared it when they torpedoed the Browns in Mile High 3 weeks ago, 30-7, after which they were edged in New Orleans, 42-0.

Previous trips resulted in 55-23 and 30-14 routs at Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, respectively. Thanks a lot for coming, we really mean it.

The Colt massacre was a Monday night game and alert ABC cameramen trained on Reeves squirming inside his own skin all game. Anyone who saw it would think twice before taking a National Football League job.

“You stand on the sidelines and you’re sticking your chin out just a little bit farther every time and letting somebody just knock the hell out of you,� Reeves said. “And that’s not any fun because there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. You got to sit there and take it.

“Your players don’t enjoy it and you don’t enjoy it. And bein’ before millions of people watchin’ it, you die a little bit every time they score.�

Their inability to handle big, strong teams, dramatized by the Washington Redskins’ 280 rushing yards in the Super Bowl, continues. Even defensive coordinator Joe Collier, their long-time wizard, is taking the heat from Broncomaniacs. A Broncomaniac is someone who paints his face orange before games, and has to be talked out of burning the stadium down after losses.

This team has the momentum?

Yup.

It’s the one with John Elway.

Many bad things have been said about Elway’s play this season, some of them even deserved. Having raised the standard of performance by which he’d be judged to hold-them-close-I’ll-be-right-there, he was having trouble living up to it.

Obviously he missed Shanahan, his old quarterback coach. The line missed Alex Gibbs--when he joined Shanahan, a Bronco official said that Gibbs was the one they were afraid was going to really hurt--and it showed.

It stopped showing, when Elway had that angry, daring, inspirational, vintage Elway game Sunday.

“He hasn’t been throwing like John Elway,� wide receiver Mark Jackson said last week. “He hasn’t been reading like John Elway.

“We’ve had some problems. He’s been working with a patched-up line all year, which has been ruining the timing. It’s not just John Elway, it’s a team effort. When the supporting actors are not in tune with John, then there’s problems.

“The emotion that you saw Sunday was the emotion that he had in the huddle--like a must-win attitude, like a he-won’t-be-denied attitude. When he comes out like that, we usually win.

“There’s been some games, where he’s concerned about the supporting cast. Someone asked him earlier in the week about the line, I remember seeing it on TV. They asked, ‘What about the line? You’ve got a patched-up line, what are you going to do?’

“He said there was nothing he could do, just go out and do his job. I think when he focused in on that, stopped trying to be the messiah, try to make up for a patched-up line, make up for a receiver corps that’s going three-quarters speed, when he focused in on John Elway, he had a great game.�

Or maybe Reeves just gave Elway his team back?

There had been rumbles that Reeves, who now calls the plays, was too concerned with establishing Tony Dorsett, always running when Dorsett was in, and passing when he wasn’t, since Dorsett isn’t famous for blocking or catching.

Result: no more unpredictable Broncos.

Last week, Elway was back to firing on first down. Dorsett didn’t get his fifth carry until the third period, when the Broncos led, 28-10.

Didn’t it seem that Reeves had said, in effect, “Here it is, big guy, let’s see what you can do with it?�

Wasn’t it like last season, when the Broncos floundered until that Monday night when Elway rallied them against the Chicago Bears, and Reeves started using the shotgun as a basic offense, whereupon Elway marched them back to the Super Bowl?

It’s close enough to keep Elway’s old buddy, Shanahan, tossing and turning.

Raider Notes

This series is the only one that has never been split since the league went to its present format in 1978--and the Raiders won the first meeting. . . . Denver fans can take comfort in the Broncos’ having won 3 of the last 4 here. . . . Rulon Jones has gotten so bad against the run that he plays only on passing downs. Two starters of the front three--Walt Boyer and Greg Kragen--have been waived five times between them. Your basic Bronco lineman seems to be a ‘tweener whom they finally move to linebacker, like Simon Fletcher, who they’re now pushing for the Pro Bowl, or 3-time Pro Bowl player Karl Mecklenburg, still out with a broken thumb. . . . For the record: Raider linemen Bill Lewis, Bruce Wilkerson, Chris Riehm, Andy Parker and John Gesek started a total of 12 games before this season, not 2 as reported. . . . Mark Jackson, on the impact of the first meeting, in which the Raiders rallied from 0-24 to win, 30-27: “You just go back and look at that film. You rewind it and play it over and over. A conference game. It’s Monday night. That’s going to make this game even bigger for us. If the guys don’t think of it that way, something’s wrong.�