Raiders Come Unglued as Lead Does Not Stick

SAN DIEGO — The Raiders had a hole punched in their honeymoon and a dent put in their future. They blew a 12-0 lead and a game they needed and now they’re back in the pack.

They didn’t score a touchdown Sunday night, settling for four field goals for their four incursions inside the San Diego 20-yard line, and falling finally, 14-12, to the upstart Chargers, dropping Art Shell to 4-2, his Raiders to 5-5.

That thud you heard was their fortune falling . . .

Raider special teams bled big plays: a kickoff return for a touchdown, the second they’ve given up in three weeks; a blocked punt.

Jay Schroeder had three interceptions, which may make next Sunday the day we learn if Steve Beuerlein can play on crutches.

“This one’s still kind of a shock,” Howie Long said.

Did he think they’d lost one they might need?

“Yeah,” Long said. “It’s a big game. It’s not the end of the year but it’s a big game.”

The ones you have halfway in your pocket on the road are gigantic. The Raiders almost doubled Charger yardage in the first half (196-100) when it was unclear what the home team had in mind: Comedy? Tragedy?

What do you call it when your kicker makes a 24-yard field goal . . . and you’re flagged for delay of game . . . and then your center snaps the ball back to midfield . . . and your kicker is flattened trying to recover?

That was ex-Raider Chris Bahr, who was carried off on a stretcher but returned with sprained ribs to kick the vital two extra points. In case Bahr was not available, Billy Ray Smith had warmed up his kicking form at halftime.

Early in the third period, the Raiders stood at the Charger eight-yard line. The brilliant-once-more Bo Jackson had 101 yards in 16 carries, having just gone for 13, five, six, two, five, five and two in this drive, carrying the ball eight times in 10 plays.

It was third and three. The Raiders ran Bo around right end once more . . . but Leslie O’Neal came across and snuffed the play for a seven-yard loss.

Jeff Jaeger came on to kick his fourth field goal for a 12-0 lead.

Then Jaeger, who was supposed to be kicking away from Anthony Miller, got one too close. Miller moved over to the middle of the field, caught it, made a break back for the right sideline and zipped 91 yards into the end zone.

Suddenly, it was 12-7 . . . and the Raiders were unraveling.

On their next possession, Schroeder, under a safety blitz, floated an pass to ex-Raider Sammy Seale, who made the interception. This almost led to the go-ahead score, except that Mike Harden arranged a little miracle, stripping Tim Spencer at the goal line when the Charger halfback was about to complete an 11-yard scoring run, and recovered the ball himself at the Raider one.

He only prolonged Sunday night’s inevitable, it turned out.

The Raiders ran three plays and punted--but not as far as they had hoped. Linebacker Ken Woodard got a hand on Jeff Gossett’s kick and it knuckled only 14 yards to the Raider 23.

For those of you with fantastic memories, Woodard is an ex-Bronco, who turned the 1986 opener in Denver around against the Raiders, stealing the ball from Marcus Allen and carrying it into the end zone.

From the 23, it took the Chargers four plays to score. Spencer got all three running calls in the little drive, the last from the Raider five. This time, when the oath to the goal opened up, he draped both hands over the football, and carried it safely to glory.

The Raiders had one more possession but O’Neal took care of that. With third and eight at the Charger 41, Schroeder scrambled 18 yards for what would have been a first down--except that Rory Graves was called for holding O’Neal.

On the next play, third and 18, O’Neal broke through a double team by Graves and John Gesek and sacked Schroeder.

The Charger offense then ran out the last 4:21, getting two first downs and retiring the Raider offense for the night.

“Our guys had a line in the locker room,” said a Charger official.

“Bo don’t know end zone.”

Raider Notes

At 5-5, the Raiders trail two wild-card contenders by a game--Miami and tonight’s Houston Oiler-Cincinnati Bengal winner, both 6-4. The Raiders are at Houston next week. . . . Bo Jackson had 103 yards in 21 carries, has three consecutive 100-yard games. He had never really had one before this stretch--only his 221-yard game at Seattle and no others of more than 100. . . . Art Shell, asked if Jay Schroeder had been sharp enough: “I don’t even want to think about that right now. I have to watch the films to see if somebody ran the wrong route. There are a lot of things that go into it.”

Schroeder, asked what he thought of his play: “I don’t know. It’s hard to say what happened individually. We tried hard as a group.” . . . Steve Beuerlein says he wasn’t ready last week, although he practiced lightly, but has hopes for this week. “It definitely has a way to go still, but I do feel good about my chances,” he said of his injured right knee. “I have a tendency to kind of paint a rosy picture but I really feel, with a couple days off, I have a chance. I have strength straight ahead. It’s just not that stable side-to-side.” . . . The first half was a penalty-plagued mess. Charger guards David Richards, the ex-UCLA Bruin, and Broderick Thompson had five holding penalties and a false start trying to handle the Raider defensive line.

MIKE DOWNEY Some rather small Chargers make some big plays to take the steam out of the Raiders’ momentum, C3.