It’s early in the week, but so far not one Broncos player has been seen punching himself in the helmet or slamming his head into his locker room stall.
Those menacing, John Matuszak stares into worlds unknown are not yet evident.
Either the Broncos have become much more mature in their approach to Raiders Week, or they have become more adept at disguising their hostility.
“The first thing is you have a job to do,” defensive end Trevor Pryce said. “You can hate them later.”
The way the Broncos acted on their first day back to work Monday after their bye week, they seemed more intent on beating the Raiders on Sunday at Oakland’s McAfee Stadium for the sake of maintaining their AFC West lead than for the mere sake of beating the Raiders.
“If you have personal grudges against the Raiders or Al Davis stiffed somebody, that’s not our problem,” Pryce said. “We’ve got to go in there and play our best football possible and hopefully come out of there with a win.”
Perhaps, but when it comes to Mike Shanahan and Davis, long live personal grudges. Their acrimonious split is common knowledge. Shanahan was the Raiders’ coach for a mere 20 games before Davis fired him in 1989, then, according to Shanahan, Davis refused to pay the final $250,000 remaining on his contract. Davis claimed Shanahan was only entitled to the buyout so long as he never coached the Broncos.
Rivalry? As long as the Broncos have Shanahan and Davis is calling the shots in Oakland, this rivalry will smolder.
“I heard about it,” said Marques Anderson, the Broncos’ backup safety who started for the Raiders last year. “I don’t want to comment about it without knowing the details. Al does have a tendency to rub some people the way Al does.”
Shanahan said he eventually won the case through NFL arbitration. He also helped turn around the Broncos-Raiders series. The Raiders dominated this series until 1995, when Shanahan became the Broncos’ coach. Since, the Broncos have gone 15-5 against the Raiders.
“The players who have been through this before understand there is a rivalry between the teams,” Shanahan said. “But the most important thing is you want to win games against teams in your division. The Raiders are in our division and our biggest motivation for this game is to go to 7-2.”
It won’t be easy. Although the Raiders are 3-5 and in the AFC West cellar, they have dramatically improved their offense with running back LaMont Jordan and receiver Randy Moss and another year of familiarity with quarterback Kerry Collins.
“They look better than last year,” Anderson said. “Their offense is clicking. Their defense is playing sound – I wouldn’t say they’re playing great, but they’re playing sound.”
Moss got off to a sensational start, but a hamstring injury has limited him to seven catches in his past four games. Yet, the Raiders are playing better. Jordan is on pace to rush for more than 1,100 yards and Collins has matched Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer with 12 touchdown passes against three interceptions.
“They are a big-time offense, you can quote me on that,” Pryce said. “They max protect, keep everybody in and give Kerry Collins time to throw the ball. Because they need time to, ‘Randy go, Randy go!”‘
Remove emotion and this game would feature the usual, intriguing matchups. The Broncos’ fifth-ranked rushing defense and the Raiders’ sixth- ranked passing offense. The Broncos’ stellar ground game against the Raiders’ sound, not great defense.
But eventually, emotion figures to stir. It may only take some trash talking to turn the maturity of Monday into boys-will-be-boys on Sunday.
“It’s always there,” said kicker Jason Elam, who has scored 182 of his 1,499 career points against the Raiders. “There’s such a tradition now. I think it’s our rivals and also it’s our fans. Kansas City is up there, but I think Raiders-Broncos, it’s tough to beat that one anywhere in the league.”
