Schroeder Is Two Quarterbacks in One

You first look at Jay Schroeder with a football in his hand and you want to ask him, “What’s the matter, surf not up anymore?” You wonder what he did with the board and why he isn’t out on the Banzai pipeline instead of the Denver goal line.

He has the platinum hair, the wide shoulders, the powerful arms. He’s almost the poster California beach boy.

Then you see him throw a football and you wonder why he isn’t in the Super Bowl. He just flicks a wrist and the ball takes off in an orbital trajectory of a moonshot. His passes look like punts. They’re pretty. They spiral through the air like rotating rockets, not like the crashing airplanes some passes resemble. He could probably throw a football through a brick wall or over a tall building. He’s the football equivalent of a railroad gun. A football field is almost too small for him.

The only trouble is, pretty as they look, Schroeder is like the long-hitting golfer who hits it out of sight but out of the fairway, too, and whose short game is ragged. Jay has no trouble throwing the ball 75 yards. It’s the little swing passes that end up in the wrong hands. If he were a golfer, he’d make the 40-footers and miss the four-footers.

Still, coaches drooled when they first got a look at the Schroeder arm. It was hinged to throw touchdowns or, at least, objects at great velocities or great distances. Baseball saw him first and had visions of him throwing out baserunners with it either from deep right field or catcher. He left UCLA for the Toronto Blue Jays after only two seasons.

He found the curveball easier to catch than hit, so he turned to football. He played creditably with the Washington Redskins so well that, when he lost his starting job to Doug Williams in 1987, the league put it down to philosophical differences between him and his coach, Joe Gibbs.

The Raiders, desperate after three years of waiting for their incumbent quarterback, Marc Wilson, to do something besides call timeouts in a pinch, reached out and got Schroeder. They gave up an all-pro offensive lineman for him.

Schroeder has been as enigmatic as a map of Russia. Like the little girl with the curl, when he is good, he is very, very good. When he’s not, he throws interceptions.

Los Angeles without a quarterback controversy is like France without wine. When Schroeder ran out on the field Sunday against the Denver Broncos, he was booed. But,that’s nothing. This is a town that booed Waterfield. Van Brocklin. L.A. is not Philadelphia, which would boo Santa Claus. But quarterbacks bring out the worst in it.

But L.A.’s heart isn’t into booing Schroeder. Fans have nowhere to go with their frustrations. In the old days, the chant could go up “We want Wade!” or “We want Munson! Or we want Jaworski!”

The Raiders have short-circuited the mass rebellion. By design.

They traded the No. 1 alternate, Steve Beuerlein, this year in the face of a storm of protest. Beuerlein was the darling and the hole-card of the anti-Schroeders who were ready, at the drop of a pass, to go into “We want Beuerlein!” It’s an L.A. tradition.

The uncoupling of Beuerlein left the fans where the only options to Schroeder are 1) a rookie quarterback who is two to three years away from taking the helm; and 2) a quarterback who is on the roster only in case all the others get hit by a train.

Raider Coach Art Shell, the spoilsport, didn’t want a quarterback controversy. It’s the last thing the team--or the coach--needed, he believed.

There is nothing Steve Beuerlein can do Jay Schroeder cannot do as well, in the view of Shell. Art deals in harmony. Schroeder got the football.

The grumblings could be heard in the stands Sunday. As good as he looks in his uniform, the fans could not help but remember John Unitas was a stoop-shouldered, underweight, unathletic-looking specimen whose helmet always looked two sizes too big and whose spindly legs were encased in high-cut shoes that made him look like a kid on his way to a game in parochial school blacktops.

Schroeder can look like a combination of Roger Staubach and Joe Montana one time and a combination of Laurel and Hardy another--sometimes in the same game.

He came into the game Sunday on back-to-back games that the Raiders lost by a combined score of 98-20, or 51-3 in the title game last year and 47-17 against Houston last week. It wasn’t all Schroeder’s fault, but he threw five interceptions in the championship game last January and he was eight for 21 in the Houston game last week.

In Sunday’s first half, the mood of the crowd was mutinous. The Raiders didn’t make a first down until the middle of the second quarter and Schroeder was three for eight from the pass line.

In the second half, Schroeder was nine for 11 with one touchdown.

Before the championship game last season, Schroeder and the Raiders were 12-4. He more than doubled his interception rate in that one game. He had only four interceptions all year--and 19 touchdowns.

So, the solution for the L.A. fans is simple. It’s too early to call, “We want Marinovich!” It’s too late to call, “We want Beuerlein!” When Jay fouls up, they can yell, “We want Schroeder--not this one, the other one!” He’s the best they have.