Defense Is Fine, but Key to This Draft Is Offense

The Raiders and Rams have precious little in common. Their owners are as much alike as Roy Orbison and Tammy Wynette. Their playbooks vary from the Raider strategy of launching missiles only a Wolf Blitzer could trace to the Ram method of ramming the old Rawlings down somebody’s throat. Even their fans are as different as caps turned backward and cardigan sweaters.

They do share this much:

--Their quarterbacks are very expensive, though hardly All-Pro.

--Their most famous running backs now work somewhere else.

--Their receivers, for some unknown reason, have acquired reputations among their fans as being superstars, when they are anything but.

And so, to sum up, it is the offenses of the Raiders and Rams that are screaming “help!” as their coaches cram for today’s NFL draft.

Everyone who clamors for defense, defense, defense needs a refresher course in recent history, beginning with a reminder that the Dallas Cowboys were a bunch of chumps until new management came along and made its first three orders of business Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith. You may blab all you will about what impact Charles Haley or other defensive monsters had in helping Dallas, but truth be told, this is a team that learned how to score.

The Raiders’ Super Bowl-worthy defense held six opponents last season to seven points or fewer, but where did it get them? Nowhere, that’s where. They didn’t have great quarterbacking, didn’t have Bo Jackson, didn’t use Nick Bell, didn’t want Marcus Allen, didn’t dial Eric Dickerson’s number after halftime and continued not to get the football to Willie Gault, who probably catches fewer passes in a month than Jerry Rice does in a week.

San Francisco built its empire on offense. The players who got them where they went during the last decade were Joe Montana, Rice, John Taylor, Roger Craig, Steve Young, Ricky Watters. This is a team that kept several top-shelf quarterbacks handy, whereas the Raiders wound up dusting the cobwebs off Vince Evans again while the Rams continued in their crazy belief that Jim Everett never needs to be challenged for his job.

One curiosity going into today’s draft is how often during the gray ‘90s the Raiders have tapped into the Rams’ shallow well of resources for offensive help--from Greg Bell and Dickerson to Gerald Perry and Gaston Green, all guys who for one reason or another slipped through the barbed wire of Camp Ram. Who’s next for the Raiders--Cleveland Gary? Marcus Dupree?

The talk continues that Al Davis and Art Shell will erect a new offense around $8-million worth of Jeff Hostetler and a few million dollars less (in Canadian currency) worth of that old opponent-stomper, Rocket Ismail. The early line on Hostetler is that anyone has to be better than the people he is replacing. The theory on Ismail is that he and Tim Brown can compare notes on how to become a super hero from Notre Dame even though people rarely get you the ball.

Speculation also has it that the Raider first rounder today will be an offensive lineman, Washington’s Lincoln Kennedy, this country’s first Triple-President threat. Good. Hostetler needs a bodyguard.

More good news is that the Rams appear to be brainstorming over whether to take Jerome “The Next Earl Campbell” Bettis, the hunch bet of Notre Dame, or to wheel and deal until they can figure out a way to land running back Garrison Hearst of Georgia, who could tickle his new Anaheim boss by wearing her name proudly to practice on his old college sweat shirt.

Either way, fine. The Rams do need more offense. And yet, they have spent several seasons experimenting with various running backs rather than doing anything about their situation at quarterback and wide receiver, as though Everett, Henry Ellard and Flipper Anderson have proved themselves to be untouchable. When is this team finally going to get around to drafting a Rick Mirer or trading up to get a Drew Bledsoe rather than for a Hearst?

Is Everett ever going to be as good a quarterback as he could be if someone actually pushed him for the job? Why is this issue so cut-and-dried? Aikman had to beat out Steve Walsh and take his job back from Steve Beuerlein, and look what he did. Young had to beat out Steve Bono and keep Montana from taking his job back, and look what he did.

The Rams have made some repairs on defense, what with Sean Gilbert on the line, a better secondary and Shane Conlan, a more complete linebacker, stepping in for Kevin Greene, principally a pass-rusher. It’s the offense that needs a lift, particularly with Perry sneaking down the freeway when nobody was looking, like Bob Irsay leaving Baltimore.

One thing the Rams and Raiders do have in common is a desperate need for new blood. OK, then. Let the transfusion begin.