PRO FOOTBALL /Week 8 : Oilers Always Big Winners on Draft Day : Raiders Play at Houston, Where No. 1 Selections Are a Matter of Course

HOUSTON —  Two streaking teams will meet today in the Astrodome. The Raiders have a four-game winning streak. The Oilers have a six-game losing streak.

The Oilers, the baseball Astros complain, are--and will always be--first in the hearts of football-mad Houstonians.

Under the direction of owner K.S. (Bud) Adams and General Manager Ladd Herzeg, the Oilers have gone 7-9, 1-8, 2-14, 3-13 and 5-11 with coaches named Ed Biles, Chuck Studley, Hugh Campbell and Jerry Glanville since they fired Bum Phillips after his 11-5 season in 1980.

Every cloud has to have a silver lining, doesn’t it? The Oilers are losing with ever-better rosters.

Their finishes have left them with a pile of blue chips. The Oilers have four No. 1 picks in the offensive line, a Heisman Trophy-winning tailback in Mike Rozier, a million-dollar free-agent quarterback in Warren Moon.

They also had another premier-pick quarterback, Jim Everett, whom they finally parceled off to the Rams for two more No. 1s and two other players.

This was rebuilding by the numbers. OK, what’s next? Oh, those blue chippers are supposed to win something?

That was supposed to happen this year, but that’s not how it has worked out.

After a 4-0 exhibition season and an opening-day 31-3 rout of the Green Bay Packers, everything else has been an L, as in loss or lousy. The Pittsburgh Steelers got their only victory in the Astrodome. Last week, with the Cincinnati Bengals driving for an insurance score, fullback Larry Kinnebrew presented Oiler linebacker Robert Lyles with a fumble that he returned 93 yards for a touchdown. That put Houston ahead, 28-24, with 1:26 left.

Insurmountable?

Not at all. It took Boomer Esiason 43 seconds to drive the Bengals 70 yards for the winning touchdown.

“The Four Horsemen rode again,” wrote the Houston Post’s Dale Robertson. “ . . . Death, Famine, Pestilence. And Houston’s Prevent Defense.”

Robertson also called the Oilers “masters of disaster . . . who are to happiness what crucifixes are to vampires.” From this you might infer that football-mad Houstonians are growing impatient.

Glanville discussed the game afterward only until someone asked how he felt about the Oilers. How much of this grueling cross-examination could a man take?

“I just feel super, how about you?” Glanville said. “Any more stupid questions? Thank you.”

And then he spun away.

“I’d say after (that) loss, in the locker room, was about as low as we’ve ever been,” Glanville said on a conference call from Houston last week, figuring out the answer at last.

“I think it was topped off by a Cincinnati newsman asking, ‘Geez, how’s your spirits now?’ It was a dumb question, and I think we responded to that in those words.

“It was obvious we were very low. It was like each of us had died. But I think what you have to do as a football team, by Wednesday you have to reach down in your inner self and come back.”

So what awaits the Raiders, a sleeping giant or a comatose one?

Raider players, recognizing a primo opportunity to let up, are trying to practice prudence, a pattern little observed among them historically. The big refrain in El Segundo last week was, “I’ve seen those guys on film and they don’t look like a 1-6 team.”

Also, the Raiders are above .500 for the first time this season. They have a big home game coming up next. (Hint: It’s against an AFC West power from the state of Colorado). And the league office hasn’t suspended or fined any of them in a week. They’re going to have to prevail without that comfortable old, embattled feeling.

The Oilers do have a lot of fine players. They also have a lot of problem areas:

--They were supposed to run the ball. Throw out Moon’s 4.9-yard average on his 20 scrambles, and the team average is 2.96 yards a rush. Rozier is at 3.3. What ever happened to him?

--The offensive line, which was supposed to make it possible for them to run the ball, is all banged up.

Harvey Salem, a starting tackle last season, held out all during camp and was traded to the Detroit Lions but only after someone--reportedly Glanville--hung his nameplate above the toilet in the locker room. Mike Munchak, a Pro Bowl guard, was lost for the season with a knee injury. Former USC tackle Bruce Matthews, a Pro Bowl alternate last season, has played four positions. Five men tried left guard before Kent Hill arrived in the Everett deal.

“The last (exhibition) game . . . against Dallas, we were doing everything we wanted to as a football team,” Glanville said. “You think you’ve got five guys who can play (the offensive line) and then you lose three of the five. . . . All of a sudden, you’re not as good a coach.”

--They’re supposed to be playing an attacking defense. So far they have 14 sacks, which puts them 20th in the NFL. They have drawn roughing-the-passer penalties in each of the last three games, though.

The Oilers also play a lot of man-to-man coverage in the secondary and dare opponents to throw deep. They’ve just found an opponent who will try them.

--The Oilers had been stopping the run until the Bengal game. In that one, however, they gave up 224 yards. That is 10 more than the Raiders got in their Miami walkover, so consider the possibilities.

--The Oiler defense is considered their strength. The offense is the struggling unit, and Warren Moon thinks he knows why.

“I’d still like to get to the point where I master one offense,” he said last week. “Since I’ve been here, we’ve had three different coordinators and we’ve run three different offenses.”

Behind the Raider rally:

This is an organization that customarily starts slowly, although by the players’ reactions, which swing from murderous to suicidal, you’d never guess it.

They often learn something from their slumps. What did they learn this year? Maybe they were too reliant on Marcus Allen.

Said fullback Frank Hawkins last week: “With Marcus being hurt, I think it opened it up for our wide receivers, who I know are grateful that they could get back into the game plan, considering they had caught something like six balls in four games.

“I just think it brought our offensive unit together and opened the door for everybody to be a part. When everybody is catching the ball and running the ball, the defense can’t key on one or two people.”

Did he mean they were better off without Allen?

“I wouldn’t dare say that,” Hawkins said. “Honest, I wouldn’t. I think Marcus is our key guy. But I think going into the season early that we just used Marcus and Todd Christensen, period. I think when Marcus got hurt, we were forced to use other players and other avenues and they have worked successfully, period.”

Raider Notes Running back Marcus Allen and cornerback Mike Haynes are listed as probable, though neither practiced last week. The hunch is that Coach Tom Flores would like to expose Allen as little as possible to the artificial turf. . . . Oiler quarterback Warren Moon has thrown 13 interceptions, but Coach Jerry Glanville says it’s from playing catch-up late. . . . Glanville: “Right now, we need a win. When I was coaching high school, everyone always wanted to play Mingo Junction. Beating them made your team feel good. Well, we don’t have Mingo on the schedule.” . . . The Raiders have the AFC’s No. 1 defense, having allowed 267.6 yards a game.