Same Old Problems Hinder New Coach As Team Plummets
In some ways, Art Shell must feel vindicated.
A year ago, when he was the Raiders’ coach, Shell was under siege for an unimaginative offense, an abundance of penalties, ineffective running, and too much dependence on receiver Tim Brown.
Well, guess what? As Shell labors in Kansas City as an assistant coach for a team with the NFL’s best record, the troubles he left behind in the wake of his dismissal are resurfacing.
Indeed, in the week that leads up to the most important game of the season for the Raiders, Shell’s successor, Mike White, is caught up in a rut similar to 1994.
Another deluge of penalties. A rushing offense that has averaged just 18 yards on 13 carries the last two games. And just as much reliance on Brown.
The Raiders’ playoff hopes also are on life support and may well expire if a four-game losing streak is extended tonight at Seattle.
Maybe, as White claims, the downturn is connected to the injury-forced absence of quarterback Jeff Hostetler. If so, then perhaps the Raiders’ troubles will end with Hostetler returning to the starting lineup.
Then again, maybe the problem runs deeper than that. Did anybody mention play calling? It’s jointly handled by White and assistant head coach Joe Bugel at field level, and quarterbacks coach Jim Fassel in the booth.
A prime example was Sunday’s 29-10 loss to Pittsburgh. It encapsuled the inconsistencies of late. Among them: abandoning the running game early, no use of speedy rookie Napoleon Kaufman as a dual threat out of the backfield, and the disappearance of “Rocket” Ismail as a deep threat to lessen double coverage on Brown.
“I’ll be honest with you. I think we’ve been very, very impatient with the running game,” Bugel said.
Bugel, a former Arizona Cardinals head coach and Washington Redskins line coach, was hired to address the Raiders’ running woes of a year ago. Is he lobbying for changes in the game plan?
“We plan together during the week,” Bugel said. “I think it’s a conglomerate of impatience. To blame one person is wrong. We want to score so bad and get ahead in games, sometimes the way you do it is throwing the ball to your blue-chip players. And one of our blue-chip players is our wide receiver (Brown).”
What’s appropriate about playing Seattle is that the Raiders’ offense was at its best in its first game with the Seahawks, a 34-14 win Oct. 8 at Oakland.
That day, Hostetler led the type of attack that White had hoped for this year: spreading the ball around, keeping the defense guessing. Hostetler passed for 333 yards, using eight different receivers. Harvey Williams ran for a career-high 160 yards.
The Raiders improved to 5-1 and went on to 8-2 before a series of injuries began to take a toll on Hostetler. Gradually, conservative changes were made, and they have backfired.
“I think what we did in our attempt to take the pressure off our quarterbacks is that we went back to Tim Brown,” White said. “We still have to use him because he’s a Pro Bowl player, but we also have to diversify.”
With Hostetler hurt, the Raiders obviously weren’t scaring anyone with backup quarterbacks Vince Evans and Billy Joe Hobert. Defenses began to stack eight men up front.
Said Bugel: “When you’re not playing your first quarterback, there are smart people in this league who say, ‘Prove to us you’re going to throw (with success).’ You can be stubborn and try to run the football 50 times, but you may only gain 50 yards. There are too many defenders to block.”
Kaufman had a foot injury last week that prevented the team from mixing him into the offense against the Steelers’ No. 1-ranked defense. Kaufman and Ismail may play big parts tonight.
“When we watched the films of our (first) Seattle game,” Brown said, “you saw different people catching balls and a lot of people were running down the field. The last four weeks, we haven’t done that.”