The Wild Cards Run Wild

By B.J. Phillips

Raucous Raiders upset earnest Eagles on Super Sunday

The Oakland Raiders were the J.R. Ewings of professional football, and the list of suspects anxious to shoot them down in the Super Bowl was a long one. The favorite: N.F.L. Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who has wanted Raiders Managing General Partner Al Davis out of the way ever since Davis led the upstart A.F.L. to victory in a bidding war for talent with the N.F.L. and forced a merger of the two leagues in 1966. Next were the 22 N.F.L. owners who voted last year to block Davis' plan to move the Raiders to Los Angeles. Then there were the Oakland fans, about to be deserted after 20 years of faithfully riling through the turnstiles. Even New Orleans saloonkeepers wished the Raiders ill after some of the players blew off a bit too much steam in the French Quarter, resulting in fines of more than $15,000 from Coach Tom Flores. Finally, the earnest, all-business Philadelphia Eagles, who had already murdered the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs, were eager to prove that clean living and hard work will win out.

But when Super Bowl XV finally drew to a close, the Raiders had the last sneer. With a 27-10 drubbing of Philadelphia, which was favored to win, Oakland became the first wild-card team to win the Super Bowl. Thus the Raiders could gleefully ask: Guess who shot the Eagles?

The game was not as close as the score. Even though Philadelphia Quarterback Ron Jaworski attempted 38 passes, a Super Bowl record, completing 18, for 291 yds., the Eagles were lame on the ground, gaining only 69 yds. Philadelphia's main problem was Oakland Quarterback Jim Plunkett, the Super Bowl M.V.P., who seemed to have all day to pass--and did, completing 13 of 21 for three touchdowns. Plunkett had waited a long time for his moment of glory, enduring injury in New England, humiliation in San Francisco and, finally, a year on the bench at Oakland.

Said Plunkett: "I hate to admit this, but I think I needed rest both mentally and physically." When the Super Day came, he was rested and--as the Eagles could testify--ready. With his veteran offensive line chopping down the Eagle rush, Plunkett calmly picked Philadelphia's secondary apart. One throw, a sideline pass to Running Back Kenny King, resulted in an 80-yd. touchdown play, a Super Bowl record.

The star on defense was Outside Linebacker Rod Martin. Slight by N.F.L. standards (6 ft. 2 in., 210 lbs.), Martin had made only two interceptions in his four N.F.L. seasons. "I'm not used to being a celebrity," said Martin. "Ted Hendricks is supposed to be our star linebacker, and that's fine with me." Yet it was he, not Hendricks, who turned New Orleans' Superdome into his private playground, setting a Super Bowl record with three interceptions.

When the game ended, curiosity seekers were treated to the sight of Rozelle trying to look happy as he handed over the Vince Lombardi Trophy to Archenemy Davis, while half-dressed Oakland players hauled out their cameras for snapshots of the historic moment. Standing silent on the side was Tom Flores, the Raiders' quiet coach, in Davis' shadow as always.

Yet it was Flores who devised a complicated blocking pattern that nullified the fearsome Eagle pass rush. In an earlier meeting with the Eagles this season, Plunkett was sacked eight times as the Raiders lost 10-7. This time, Plunkett went down just once, and then gently, at the end of a scramble.

The son of Mexican-American farm workers, Flores began his football career as a schoolboy quarterback in Sanger, Calif. At the College of the Pacific, he broke most of Eddie LeBaron's passing records, but was overlooked in the N.F.L. draft. He went to the Canadian Football League, but was dropped after a shoulder ailment recurred. Flores drifted to the Raiders, where he was starting quarterback for two seasons before contracting tuberculosis. He returned to play for eight more years with a couple of N.F.L. teams, then joined the Raiders' coaching staff.

When Head Coach John Madden retired after the 1978 season, Davis picked Flores to succeed him.

Flores shepherds his unruly team with a gentle but firm hand. He has few rules--and enforces them strictly. The Raiders are familiar figures in Bay Area bars during their off-days, but Flores bans such revelry as game day approaches, levying heavy fines on miscreants. Says Guard Gene Upshaw: "Tom doesn't say anything if you screw up; he just cuts off your wallet." That his methods work was abundantly clear on Super Sunday. As Flores told his brother during the championship season, "Not bad for a Chicano grapepicker, is it?" --By B.J. Phillips

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