Give This Bad Show the Hook

I love pro football. This isn’t it.

Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. The Raiders look terrible. They have been beaten and beaten badly. They’ve gone from black and silver to black and blue. You call this team a Super Bowl contender? Right now, this team doesn’t look like a Bud Bowl contender. No rushing game. None. Dreadful. No resemblance to the old passing game. None. Woeful. No heart or character on defense. None. Guys getting kicked out and guys not even showing up. Pitiful. Art Shell should start screaming in their faces and Al Davis should stop payment on their checks.

Two weeks old and the season is already in double jeopardy. I’ll take “NFL Flops” for a hundred, Alex. Overreacting? You tell me. The Raiders are in last place. They have been outscored, 82-23, over a span of six days. Four of their next five games are against teams quarterbacked by John Elway, Drew Bledsoe, Dan Marino and Jeff George, the league’s hottest passers. This team could be out of the playoffs by October.

On behalf of everyone who overrated them, I humbly apologize.

That includes Shell. Even he felt compelled to say: “Maybe I overrated the talent on this team.”

No maybe about it, baby.

Sunday’s sorry-excuse-for-an-effort, 29-point, complete-and-unconditional surrender to Seattle was the worst loss for a Raider team at home since a 55-21 defeat to San Diego on Nov. 22, 1981.

It was as lousy a performance at the Coliseum as I have ever seen, and that includes concerts.

Scott Davis, the AWOL defensive end, didn’t show up. Scott Davis is about as reliable as a $2 wristwatch. Aundray Bruce, another defensive end, and Chester McGlockton, his sidekick at tackle, got bounced from the game on the same play. These three miscreants deserted their teammates. They can blame personal problems, temper, opponents, whatever they like--doesn’t matter. None of them were there when their friends needed them most. They jumped ship.

The entire Raider defense disintegrated. Derrick Hoskins also got the heave-ho, right after Albert Lewis got the cuckoo knocked out of his clock. By game’s end, the Raiders were playing people like Austin Robbins, Rob Holmberg and Rob Fredrickson, playing rookies who were supposed to break into the system gradually. They were using John Duff at defensive end. Fans in the stands were turning to one another and asking: “Who are these guys?”

I don’t blame them. I don’t even recognize this team right now. Was that really Tim Brown fumbling punts and butter-fingering passes? Was that really Jeff Hostetler throwing footballs no farther or harder than a referee’s flag?

Where’s Tom Rathman, paging Mr. Tom Rathman? (Five carries in two games for 16 yards.) Who is Tyrone Montgomery and what is he doing starting at tailback? (Nine carries in two games for 15 yards.) Why is the leading Raider ground-gainer after two weeks Harvey Williams, who has rushed for exactly 38 yards? Emmitt Smith gets 38 yards falling out of bed.

We thought the Raiders would be great. Like Humphrey Bogart, we were misinformed. They’re not even good. They had better do more at Denver next week than pick fights. Or else they could be 0-3 going into the San Diego game. That’s followed by back-to-back trips to New England and Miami, two of the NFL’s highest-scoring teams. Good luck. The bad, bad, bad, bad Raiders are giving up 41 points per game.

They fooled me. They fooled lots of us.

I never counted on Hostetler overshooting and underthrowing receivers, right and left. I never expected him to heave 36 passes in one afternoon and not complete one of them for 20 yards. I never expected Hostetler and Vince Evans to rank No. 2 and No. 3 on the Raiders after two weeks--in rushing .

This team had better find its heart in a hurry. It can’t find Davis, but that’s only one of the coach’s problems. Shell wouldn’t be able to point out enough blame for this game if he had 45 fingers. I can already hear the Raiders now, saying this week: “Hey, we didn’t say we would be good. You guys said we would be good.”

If only getting into fights could earn you points, the Raiders could be unbeaten. Even their old friend Steve Smith, now of the Seahawks, went away from this one muttering: “As a group, they were taking cheap shots all day. I don’t know if they were trying to prove their manhood or what.”

Over two seasons, the Raiders have lost four of their last six games. They aren’t nearly the team I thought they were. They aren’t nearly the team they thought they were.

Maybe they’ll score touchdowns against Denver next week, between fights.

I doubt it.