Raiders Can See the Light : Win Over 49ers May Signal End of the Tunnel

It’s too soon to know if any of these guys will ride a horse on the practice field (as Ted Hendricks did), or scream “I’ll kill you and everything you love!” (Lyle Alzado), or join the opposing huddle for a drink (Howie Long), but let’s leave legend-making to the future.

For the present, young and heretofore anonymous Raiders named Mike Wise and Scott Davis led a surge that swallowed the San Francisco 49ers offense in a 9-3 victory that was as significant as it was surprising.

After a Sunday of stunners, the Raiders are 6-5, still tied for first in the AFC West with Seattle and Denver.

Moreover, the pendulum is swinging their way. The Raiders have the best division record and if they keep it, would win any tie. They’ll play 3 of their last 5 at home, while the others play 3 on the road.

The Raiders have their first victory over a winning team and a three-game win streak. If you could have chalked the first couple up to astute scheduling, this one stands as a landmark. The 49ers were a quality team with a 176-yard rushing average. The Raiders held them to less than half that (83), their first touchdown-less home game since 1982 and their fewest points at home since 1977.

Are the young Raiders coming on, or what?

“Well,” said defensive coordinator Charlie Sumner laughing, “we could still use Howie.”

It was Sumner who helped save the game, out-foxing one of two geniuses working, the silver-haired one, Bill Walsh.

Faced with a fourth and 2 at the Raider 20 and 1:56 left, Walsh ran a reverse. This was a daring call, but Walsh is a daring coach, and besides, he’d already run it once in a similar situation. Sumner sniffed it out, switched his defense accordingly, and voila ! Jerry Rice ran right into Scott Davis, who turned him inside and tackled him for a 7-yard loss.

“It was one of their favorite plays, and I figured they were either going to get it to (Roger) Craig or Rice,” Sumner said.

“We did a little thing that we do to protect both sides. If Craig was going to run that way or Rice was going to come this way, we had our linemen charge out and our ‘backers cover on each side, two guys on each side.”

Sumner is famous for another great switch, sending Jack Squirek in to intercept Joe Theismann’s screen pass in the ’84 Super Bowl. But that was a while ago and Sumner has recently been under a lot of pressure from the Raider genius, Al Davis. Score one for grace under management pressure.

It stayed close all afternoon because the promising Raider offense . . . kept reneging on its promises.

The Raiders ran up a fancy 159 yards rushing, themselves, but every time they got close to anything, the middle of the 49er line--read, Michael Carter--would throw them back:

--On their first possession, they drove 63 yards to the Niner 1 . . . where Marcus Allen was hit by Carter and fumbled the ball away.

“I never did fully put it away and that’s a lesson you have to learn,” Allen said, grinning. “I should have learned it by now.

“Was I worried? We had chapel, man. In the sermon, the word was, ‘Don’t worry.’ Well, I worried a little bit during the latter part of the game, I said, ‘Aw, shoot, if they score, it’ll be on my shoulders.’ But the guys saved me.”

--On a fourth and 1 at the San Francisco 32 in the second quarter, Steve Beuerlein tried a quarterback sneak, and was thrown back.

“We had a few mental breakdowns,” Beuerlein said. “On the sneak, one of the guys thought we were going with Marcus over the top and didn’t hear me say ‘sneak.’ There was too much penetration, I couldn’t go anywhere.”

--With two more cracks from the 49ers’ 1 midway through the fourth period, Steve Smith and Allen were thrown back. The Raiders had to settle for a field goal and a precarious 9-3 lead, instead of a fatter 13-3.

So they took what they could get, three points at a time.

Chris Bahr nailed his first field goal from 45 yards early in the third period to tie the game, 3-3.

He knocked one through from 50, his longest of the season, a few minutes later and it was 6-3.

He made that 19-yard chip shot in the fourth quarter, after the 49ers’ goal-line stand, for 9-3.

The Raider defense made it stand up. This is a unit that has long depended on Long, who has been out a month and, they learned last week, is likely to miss another.

But Davis, the rookie No. 1C pick, has been coming on. He is much praised for his strength. Wise, the third-year dark horse from UC Davis, gets criticized a lot for being suckered and trapped, but he seems to wind up in a good place often enough. Sunday he finished on top of Joe Montana twice for sacks, and recovered a fumble.

“I realize I have to work on my awareness,” Wise said. “Hey, big deal, I played a decent game today. I’ve got to watch film, I’ve got to study hard. I’m not a complete player yet.

“That’s not the story. The story is the kid met the challenge today, but that’s only one game.”

Lot of Raider kids met the challenge Sunday, and the race went on with them still in it.

Raider Notes

Steve Beuerlein’s numbers were his worst (completing 8 of 22 passes) since he reassumed the starting job, but he threw no interceptions, ran away from several sacks and was only dropped twice. Beuerlein: “I’m not happy with the way I played personally but the bottom line is we won.” . . . And Beuerlein on shoving Tory Nixon, who’d tackled him at the end of a run: “I got up and he came slamming into me, trying to be a tough guy. I’m pretty dumb about that stuff. I don’t back down from anybody and I went after him. And then Ronnie Lott came after me.” . . . Mike Haynes on his bump/no bump with Jerry Rice, who fell on the 49ers’ next-to-last play: “When he fell, I thought the official could call it either way.” The official ruled they’d both been playing the football. Meanhwile, the Raiders were still protesting the ruling that Mervyn Fernandez hadn’t made a great sideline catch at the 49ers’ 13 in the fourth quarter. . . . Bo Jackson averaged 4.7 yards a rush and did one of his vintage run-down-Brian-Bosworth numbers on the usually indestructible Lott, plowing straight over him on a sweep. On another, Jackson carried Lott several yards downfield on his back, looking like he was trying to turn the 49er safety into the nation’s heaviest jockey.