Rich Gannon doesn't put up spectacular numbers, but he's a steady leader for Oakland.

The Oakland team you'll see take the field in Denver tonight, in an AFC West matchup that has playoff implication for at least one of the participants, is remarkably similar to the one that staggered down the stretch a season ago, failing to make the playoffs. But there's one particular difference, and depending upon which ouija board you consult, it is the key difference.

Gannon's in. Jeff George, with his mountain of bad karma and a puzzling inability to make things work in Oakland, is out.

And with all due respect to George, who has reinvented himself as the picture of professional calm and explosive performance in Minnesota, the Raiders prefer it this way. They like the guy they've got.

You know what's weird? Even at 5-4 and facing a traditionally brutal game against the Broncos, they should feel that way.

Rich Gannon is the right fit for the Raiders, which is absolutely the same as saying he's the right fit for Oakland coach Jon Gruden. He isn't as flashy as George; he doesn't have the cannon arm; he can't run like the wind ... Say, are we still talking about the guy Gruden wants?

Positively. And for this reason, perhaps above all other: Gannon knows what he isn't at least as thoroughly as he knows what he is.

When people talk about Gannon's work since coming to Oakland from Kansas City after last season, they almost never reach first for the numbers. What they talk about is Gannon's sense of knowing what to do -- in the huddle, on the field, in the locker room. Talk about your intangibles: You can't cash one of those traits into a quick TD to win a game.

Or maybe you can. In last week's 28-9 victory over an incomplete San Diego team, it seemed as though Gannon was banking on precisely those traits. His was the voice in the locker room imploring his teammates, "Let's see if we can't put together an effort where we can put the baseball cap on with a couple of minutes left in the fourth quarter."

In the huddle, Gannon was, as the Raiders now have come to understand, a fair epitome of calm. And his work on the field -- 18 completions in 24 pass attempts, 254 yards, four touchdowns, 43 rushing yards on seven scampers -- made it all stand up.

Sure, it was the Chargers. But why pick nits when you've got a groundswell developing?

It's strange: The Raiders could be 5-4 with George, and feeling totally different about it. The feeling would be one of impending trouble. Five up and four down would take the shape of a disaster waiting to happen, and the sense was -- eternally -- that George would somehow wind up in the middle of that disaster.

That's why the Raiders released George just two seasons into a whopper contract, and it is why Gruden sought out Gannon -- steady in almost every respect, and at least as unflappable as he might be accused of being unspectacular -- to take over the team this year.

From the start, Gannon has infused the Raiders offense with a sense of competence behind center, and that's notwithstanding the record. Oakland came into the season with a schedule rated the toughest in the league, yet hit the turn at 4-4 and fully aware that it could have been 6-2.

And while it hasn't been full-blown roses, it hasn't been bad. Watch the Raiders play behind Gannon, and you will see a more controlled offense than anything this franchise has thrown out there for awhile. Gannon has consistently been cited by his teammates as the calming presence in the huddle. That's the first time in years such a thing has been uttered in connection with Oakland football.

Gannon's determined, too -- perhaps to a fault. After breaking his left (non-throwing) wrist the week before, Gannon appeared to favor it in the first half of a tough game against Miami. But he refused to leave the game, and wound up having his worst afternoon of the season in a 16-9 defeat.

Even his most ardent supporters questioned the wisdom there. Said teammate Tim Brown, an admirer of Gannon's style, "He's a tough guy, sometimes too tough. He's kind of like Jeff Hostetler -- crazy tough."

Two weeks later, Gannon lacerated the depleted San Diego secondary, the Raiders cruised to one of their only comfortable victories of the year, and no one was asking questions about whether he should be on the field. He has had a way, so far in this season, of quelling every possible insurrection -- and for that alone, Rich Gannon already has a solid leg up on a whole host of Oakland predecessors.

Mark Kreidler is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, which has a web site at http://www.sacbee.com/. During the 1999 NFL season, he will write a weekly column for ESPN.com, focusing on the Monday Night Football matchup.