HOLDING THE LINE : After Otto, Dalby, Raiders Found New Anchor in Mosebar

OXNARD —  They were two links in a Raider chain that stretched across a quarter of a century. Few teams have ever enjoyed such stability at one spot. Perhaps the Yankees in center field, when Joe DiMaggio and then Mickey Mantle were roaming out there.

For the Raiders, it was Jim Otto and Dave Dalby who held the team together at the center position from Oakland to Los Angeles, from the AFL to the AFC, from Tom Flores to Jim Plunkett. Otto was there from the team’s inception in 1960 to 1974. Dalby’s era was 1972-85.

In 1983, the Raiders thought they found the third link for the chain right in their own back yard. So they made Don Mosebar, an offensive tackle at USC, a first-round draft choice and converted him to center.

They haven’t been disappointed. Beginning his sixth season, Mosebar, 26, has been to the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl, and has generally proven a worthy heir to the Otto-Dalby legacy.

So you can imagine the alarm Mosebar felt last spring when he thought the link in the chain had been irreparably broken.

Mosebar’s back went out on him. Nothing dramatic. No crushing assault by Dexter Manley or Lawrence Taylor. Nope, just a quiet day for Mosebar, watching television on his living room floor.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” he said. “But I suddenly couldn’t stand up.”

The injury didn’t exactly come out of the blue, however. Mosebar already had been in for back surgery twice--in the spring of ’83 for a pinched nerve and in the fall of ’84 for a ruptured disk.

This time, surgeons removed scar tissue and bone to enlarge the area around the injured nerve, and Mosebar has been making steady progress since. He started taking part in contact drills for the first time this week but won’t play Saturday in the Raiders’ exhibition game against the Dallas Cowboys at the Coliseum.

What’s the big deal, you ask? After five years in the league, how much practice does a proven center need? Can’t he just learn the snap count and go back to work?

Not exactly. Certainly not this year on this team.

Because upon returning, Mosebar has found it’s a whole new ballgame: new coach, new quarterback, new teammates, new system.

Instead of taking orders from Tom Flores, Mosebar is now working under Mike Shanahan. Instead of snapping the ball to Marc Wilson, Mosebar will probably have Steve Beuerlein hunching over him as the starting quarterback. Instead of playing on a line that includes John Clay, Mosebar lines up along with Jim Lachey.

But for Mosebar, the biggest adjustment is a new blocking system installed by Shanahan and his chief lieutenant, Alex Gibbs.

In layman’s terms, the Shanahan administration is changing the blocking patterns in passing situations from man-to-man to more of a zone.

That’s a simplification, but there’s nothing simple about the new system.

“We are just not going to put a friend and buddy where he doesn’t have a chance,” Gibbs says. “We are going to try to keep people from getting cornered, one on one. On blocking assignments, it’s not going to be a case where each of our guys has a guy. We all have everybody . A lot of times (when a defender slips through), you’ll hear, ‘Whose guy was that?’ You don’t hear that around here. We are trying to take away mismatches.

“It’s complicated. Brains are going to be stretched. There could be a lot of mental fatigue around here.”

No problem, figures Mosebar.

“People are almost always going to be getting help from someone,” he said. “You’ll almost never be blocking someone by yourself. Certain people on the line have harder jobs than other people, and this system has been instituted to help them. Before, you would just look around to see who needed help.”

Another change should also make life easier for Mosebar and his friends.

“We are going to be throwing the ball quicker,” he said. “Instead of the quarterback waiting back there four or five seconds for someone to get open, it’ll be more of a timing situation, throwing to a spot.”

Mosebar sees another advantage in the new system for an offensive line devastated by injuries last year.

“You don’t have to take time to get used to new people next to you,” he said. “Everybody does things the same way. We’re not individuals out there anymore. Everybody’s on the same page.”

It’s early, but the first signs on the new arrangement are encouraging. In last Saturday’s exhibition opener again San Francisco, the Raiders, sacked often at times last season, allowed only two against the 49ers, none by the first unit.

Raider Notes

As expected, Coach Mike Shanahan named Steve Beuerlein as the starting quarterback for Saturday’s home exhibition opener against Dallas. As he did last week against San Francisco, Beuerlein will work the first half with the first unit, which stamps him as the front-runner for the starting job. Veteran Jim Plunkett, 43, who hasn’t played since 1986, will start the second half for the Raiders.