Seahawks Take to Air With Krieg : Raiders: Return of quarterback bolsters offense. The days of Ground Chuck are gone.

Take a deep breath. Now, accept this cold fact: Chuck Knox’s team can’t rush the football.

This is a preposterous thought for anyone who followed the coach and his Rams in the 1970s. Or saw his Buffalo Bills in the early 1980s. Or saw his Seattle Seahawks with Curt Warner.

In 1973, his Rams averaged 208 yards rushing. Knox has been Ground Chuck for so long you wonder which came first, the coach or the beef.

Knox is still running the Seahawks, who will play the Raiders today at the Coliseum, but this is neither the coach nor the team a league remembers.

“We’re Air Knox now,” Knox joked this week.

The Seahawks acknowledge having used four-receiver sets on second down this season, a philosophy that smacks of run-and-shoot.

“We’ve been doing that for a number of years,” Knox said. “Contrary to what people think and say about our running game, we’ve really been throwing the ball more than we’ve been running it the last three years.”

Maybe no one wanted to believe it. But Knox has the numbers to prove it. The Seahawks averaged 87 yards on the ground in 1988, 109 in 1989 and 99 in 1990.

Seattle ranks 21st overall in rushing this season, averaging 3.5 yards per carry.

In last week’s loss to San Diego, Seattle rushed for 37 yards in 13 carries.

Somehow, though, Knox has found another way to keep his team in contention. The Seahawks are 5-5, but trail AFC West leaders Denver and Kansas City by only two games with six remaining.

The Seahawks, like the Raiders (6-4), have been dragged through the emotional wringer this year. Seattle has lost five games by a total of 20 points.

“We’ve been in every football game, and we’ve had a chance to win them,” Knox said. “We have not been able to make the plays.”

The Raiders are 4-0 in games decided on the last play, one of those a 23-20 overtime victory at Seattle on Oct. 13. Safety Ronnie Lott set up the winning field goal with his interception in overtime.

Quarterback Dave Krieg is one reason Knox has gone to the air in recent years. Last week, Krieg quietly became the 31st NFL quarterback to surpass 25,000 yards passing.

Krieg, for 12 seasons, has been perceived as the quarterback the Seahawks were keeping until they could find a better one. They still haven’t found one.

“I’m still playing in the league,” Krieg said, “and that’s pretty good for a guy from Milton (College), I think.”

The Seahawks don’t know how much they miss Krieg until he’s gone. He suffered a broken thumb on his throwing hand in the opener and sat out the next six games. In the interim, Seattle labored with Jeff Kemp and a brief, two-quarter dose of rookie Dan McGwire.

Krieg almost was re-activated for the first game against the Raiders, and in retrospect, perhaps Knox should have made the move. In 12 games against the Raiders, Krieg has completed 60% of his passes, 28 of them for touchdowns, and has thrown only 12 interceptions.

“There was a possibility,” Krieg said of playing in the first game. “At the time we had a 17-0 lead, you would think we’d be able to hold on anyway.”

You would think.

Instead, Knox went with the veteran backup Kemp, who threw three interceptions. Two days later, the Seahawks cut Kemp.

“He thought he was ready to play the last time,” Knox said of Krieg. “We decided to wait another week, because I didn’t feel he had his arm strength or that he was sharp in practice.”

In three games since his return, Krieg has averaged 262 yards passing and has completed 73% of his passes. Still, he has never been regarded among the league’s elite quarterbacks.

“He’s a good, solid, veteran quarterback,” Raider Coach Art Shell said. “He’s not John Elway.”

Shell apparently doesn’t remember he is 5-0 against Elway.

Raider Notes

The Raiders have not scored more than 23 points in a game this season. . . . Once again, safety Vann McElroy will miss a chance to stick a helmet into his former teammates. McElroy, a nine-year Raider who was traded to Seattle last season after a bitter contract dispute, has been on injured reserve all season because of an ankle injury. . . . A Raider victory would even the series at 14-14, leaving the Philadelphia Eagles (3-2) as the only team with a winning record against the Raiders in regular season games.

The Raiders are 18-4 in games decided by one point. . . . The Raiders should be rooting for Denver to beat Kansas City today at Arrowhead Stadium because they have swept the season series from the Broncos and would win any head-to-head tiebreakers. The Raiders lost their first meeting with the Chiefs. The teams close the regular season Dec. 22 at the Coliseum.

Opponents have all but eliminated Raider deep threat Willie Gault from the game plan with deep zone defenses. Gault has 15 catches this season. . . . Seattle Coach Chuck Knox on his team’s chances to win the division: “We’re two games out of first, one game out of second and there are three teams ahead of us.”