Raiders Win Their Third in a Row; Rams Lose Their Second in 3 Weeks : Plunkett’s 2 Touchdown Tosses Help Sink the Seahawks, 14-10

Playing tough--yet clean--football, the Raiders struck back at a hostile world, starting with NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle who took one of their players away last week and then, just when they reached a proper level of indignation, gave him back.

Next came the Seahawks, another rival but of the on-field variety. Duck soup. Die, feathered friends.

The Raiders took a 14-0 lead behind the venerable Jim Plunkett, holed up behind their defense and won, 14-10, Sunday before 70,635 in the Coliseum. Now they are 3-3, or better than they’ve been since they took the field for the season opener in Denver.

This was a turnaround of some note. There was a theory that the unsuspending of Greg Townsend would rob them of some handy rage. NBC’s Merlin Olsen said as much on the pre-game show.

But was one good turn going to defuse Raider rage?

Nah. . .

“I knew it was just a method of distracting us for this game,” Sean Jones said. “It almost worked. We had to have some team meetings. We were thinking of ways to protest.

“We were going to wear white armbands to signify the death of Rozelle. He can’t be alive and make the call he made. But we decided that the best protest would be to win the game.

“Believe it or not, we weren’t in a rage. It’s just that we’re players. The vendetta is with our owner. We’re being used as pawns in the political NFL chess game.”

Ask another pawn.

“I think everybody was hoping we were down,” Rod Martin said. “Then we started coming back up. They figured, ‘OK, what do we have to do to compress them, to keep them from rising to the occasion?’ ”

How about an inside linebacker?

“It figures,” said Matt Millen, laughing. “The NFL gives us a rallying point and then takes it away. It’s a conspiracy.”

That NFL is getting cagey, but it didn’t work. The Raiders shut down the Seahawks all day, moved the ball down the field a couple of times early and that did it.

Their first possession went 73 yards to the Seattle 11 but ended when a Plunkett pass caromed off Dokie Williams’ hands and into those of Kerry Justin, a Seahawk.

The Seahawks ran three plays and punted.

The Raiders then marched 45 yards into the end zone, Plunkett hitting Williams for a gain of 22 yards and then with a nine-yard pass in the end zone.

The Seahawks managed to run off six plays, but then punted.

The Raiders went 67 yards for a touchdown. The last 49 came when Plunkett, the immobile, the statuary, the Rock of Gibraltar, went back to pass, ducked right under the embrace of Seahawk nose tackle Joe Nash (“I hunched down. Fortunately, he kept going”), saw Jessie Hester running deep and without company and hit him. Hester caught the ball at the Seattle eight and pranced in. Chris Bahr’s point made it 14-0.

At this point, the Raiders had run 24 of the game’s 33 plays.

This is also where the drama stops. The Raiders grew conservative and the teams slugged it out.

The Seahawks managed a 44-yard drive late in the first half but it died at the Raider 13, so Norm Johnson kicked a 30-yard field goal. They scored their touchdown in the third period after recovering Napoleon McCallum’s fumble at the Raider 39.

Mostly, they went nowhere. Warner, the AFC rushing leader with the 101-yard and 4.8 averages, was held to 74 and 3.9.

And the amazing thing is that he was brilliant. In the third period, he made one run, bouncing off several Raiders and cutting away from several others, that was nominated as one of the great five-yard gains of all time.

“How long have I known him?” said Millen, a fellow Penn State alumnus. “Eight years, ten years? This was the best I ever saw him play. He made some cuts out there, I thought this was ‘Brian’s Song.’

“The first play of the game? Their guard took me, I got rid of him, I’m squared up on Curt and he gives me one of these numbers--he just sidesteps me. That time he caught the pass and I was laying on top of him? I said, ‘Curt, could you slow down a little?’ He was awesome.”

Everyone else was held in check, too. The Seahawks gained 211 yards all day.

They got the ball back three times after cutting it to 14-10, with a chance to march for a go-ahead touchdown.

The first possession went 15 yards before Howie Long ate up Krieg on a sack.

Their next possession went no yards before Bill Pickel sacked Krieg.

Their next possession netted seven yards, including Martin’s sack of Krieg.

After that, 8:10 remained in the game. Plunkett then ate up all but 1:39 of it with a 13-play, 51-yard drive to the Seattle 20. The Seahawks had to take all their timeouts. Bahr then missed a 37-yard field goal try and they were still alive.

Krieg completed three quick passes, getting the Seahawks to the Raider 46 with :59 left. He threw a seven-yard completion to Steve Largent, who got out of bounds, stopping the clock.

Krieg threw an incompletion. On the next play, guess which un-suspended Raider defensive end sacked him for a 12-yard loss? You’ve got it, Townsend, the Raiders’ gift for the day from the commissioner’s office.

A moment later, Krieg thew a last desperate incompletion. The Raiders had prevailed, pending any further reviews of the day’s action.

Raider Notes

NBC’s Merlin Olsen, allowed to watch Raider film of the melee in Kansas City, said on the pre-game show that he didn’t think Greg Townsend had started the fight, that Townsend subsequently had had his own face mask pulled, first by Todd Blackledge, then by Mark Adickes. . . . Said Olsen: “I don’t want to make Townsend sound like a Boy Scout . . . but there’s no question in my mind he was provoked.” Said Olsen later: “The thing you can see in the Raider film is that Townsend was just trying to get back into the play, which is his job. I don’t think he ever saw Brad Budde get up off the ground. Then Budde went after him. . . . Except for the one thing, where Townsend kicked Dave Lutz when he was on the ground, you get the feeling he was defending himself. . . . I’m not in a position where I’m going to defend Townsend, but I think the justice meted out by the league office should be fair and should be even. I had a chance to see the Chicago-St. Louis incident (three Cardinals were fined $2,300 apiece for kicking a fallen Bear). The actions in that one were much more violent and dangerous. Yet none of the people in that was suspended.” . . . Could this have stemmed from the Pete Rozelle-Al Davis antagonism? “I think it’s a possibility,” Olsen said. “But I’ll tell you what gets the Raiders in trouble. They have cultivated a reputation for playing physical defense and tough football. Occasionally that gets them in trouble and this is a case in point.”. . . Not Every Raider Was Thrilled Department: “The frustrating thing about playing conservatively was there were a lot of things to exploit,” Todd Christensen said. “One safety (Kenny Easley) is hurting and can’t run and we don’t take advantage of it. We sit on the lead trying not to lose, as opposed to winning.” . . . The Raiders, who allowed the Chiefs 181 yards a week ago, allowed the Seahawks 211. The Cardinals have the league’s best defensive average, 243 yards a game. . . .