They’ll Think Deep : Raiders: Davis and Shell promise a return to the good old days with Schroeder throwing and Gault, Brown and Fernandez catching.

After being hailed as the NFL’s winningest team of the past three decades, the Raiders went into decline in the latter part of the 1980s, failing to make the playoffs the past four seasons. Does this, then, figure to be a key season for Al Davis’ team?

“Every season is a key season because we’ve never had the luxury, in our minds, of transition,” the Raider owner said. “We start a new decade.”

And Davis hopes his team has better luck than it did in the past decade.

“Whatever I say could be misconstrued, but we had some bad breaks the last couple of seasons,” Davis said.

“In 1988, we lost (cornerback) Terry McDaniel for the whole season early in the year, and we made that trade for (quarterback) Jay Schroeder. And then in 1989, we lost (Tim Brown) for the whole year in the first game and we also lost (center Don Mosebar) for three weeks. We were close, but we just couldn’t do it in the last two years. If we’d won one of the last two games, we would have made the playoffs, and we couldn’t get it done.”

Coach Art Shell, who begins his first full season after replacing Mike Shanahan four games into last season, has promised a return to “Raider football.”

Translation: Like the Kenny Stabler-led teams of old, the Raiders will go for the long strike.

Although he’s still deciding whether to leave the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and go back to Oakland, Davis welcomes the revival of Raider football.

“You have to win, that would be a return to Raider football,” Davis said. “You don’t have to throw deep if you have the threat of it. You don’t have to use the atom bomb if you have the threat of it, and there’s no question we have the threat of it and we have to use it occasionally.”

But have situation substitutions made the long strike obsolete? And do the Raiders have the quarterbacks to make it successful?

The Raiders go into this season with Steve Beuerlein, who finished 1989 as the starting quarterback, having missed all of training camp because of a contract dispute.

Schroeder, who lost his job to Beuerlein after having more interceptions than touchdowns last season, returns to the starting lineup. Schroeder was unable to produce many points in the exhibition season, throwing for only three touchdowns in five games, although he threw for two of them in the exhibition finale Saturday.

Asked if Schroeder is in the same class with Darryl Lamonica, Stabler and Jim Plunkett, Davis said: “Not at this stage. But Art’s son, Chris, who’s 13 years old, could tell you that. But don’t forget Plunkett went about seven years as a total, total basket case. And he didn’t have the microscopic scrutiny that (Schroeder is under).”

There’s no question that Schroeder is lacking in several areas, among them completion percentage and avoiding interceptions.

“You’d like to be able to do everything perfect every game, but it just doesn’t happen that way,” Schroeder said. “I think we’re getting a lot of our problems solved.”

The Raiders are confident that Schroeder, who has a career interception-touchdown ratio of 63-50, is competent and that Beuerlein is more than a capable backup.

“We’re getting better at the quarterback position,” Shell said. “Our quarterbacks are better than they were last year.”

On the receiving end, Brown appears to be fully recovered from knee surgery, and Mervyn Fernandez hopes to have his second consecutive 1,000-yard season. If Willie Gault, who dropped a potential 50-yard touchdown pass in an exhibition game at Chicago, can hang onto the ball, he may also contribute.

The Raider backfield is jammed, with tailbacks Greg Bell and Marcus Allen, who will be joined by Bo Jackson after baseball season.

Bell, determined to prove that he can be as productive running behind the Raider line as he was behind the Ram line, probably won’t gain 1,000 yards, because Shell won’t let him carry the ball as often as Ram Coach John Robinson did.

Allen had requested a trade, but remains with the Raiders because the Rams balked at a deal that would have included linebacker Kevin Greene.

Asked if the Raiders plan to start the season with Allen, Davis said: “Right now we do. He’s here and playing and he’s doing well.”

The Raiders improved their offensive line with the acquisition of guard Max Montoya from the Cincinnati Bengals.

Still, the offense, under the direction of new coordinator Terry Robiske, struggled so much until the final exhibition game that kicker Jeff Jaeger was the most potent threat.

The Raiders seemed to have strengthened their defense after using their first two draft choices for defensive end Anthony Smith of Arizona and linebacker Aaron Wallace of Texas A&M;, and also signing free-agent linebacker Riki Ellison, a former 49er.

Smith, however, injured his knee last week, underwent surgery and has been put on injured reserve, which means he will sit out the season.

Wallace will give the Raiders another pass-rush specialist in addition to Greg Townsend, who signed a contract worth a reported $2 million for two years.

Ellison, replaced by former Raider Matt Millen in the San Francisco lineup, has taken Millen’s old spot at middle linebacker.

Nose guard Bob Golic, who improved the Raider defense in the middle, looks as sharp as he did last year, and defensive end Howie Long begins the season in sound physical condition.

The Raiders have cast off veteran defensive back Mike Haynes because they have been impressed with the play of Garry Lewis and Torin Dorn.

Ron Brown, being converted from wide receiver to cornerback, may be more valuable on punt returns.

The Raider special teams, which last season allowed two kickoffs and a punt to be returned for touchdowns, one of which resulted in a loss to San Diego, seem to have improved with the return of assistant coach Steve Ortmayer, who was released as general manager by the Chargers.

Are the Raiders better than they were last season, when they finished 8-8?

“Right now, we’re a better football team than we were last year at this same time,” Shell said. “We’ve got better talent, and the talent we have is a year older. They understand things a lot better than they did last year and they’re playing with more tenacity. There’s not a whole lot of thinking going on, they’re just lining up and reacting.”