Raiders Should Have Paid Attention to the Small Details

The big guy, Art Shell, saw his football team get picked on Sunday night by a bunch of guys who look half his size. The Raiders lost a 12-point lead and a much-needed NFL game to the Chargers, 14-12, because some smallish people made some big plays.

There was the 198-pound San Diego quarterback, Jim McMahon, the little snot, who ran keepers fearlessly with very large people from Los Angeles breathing down his neck, and engineered the winning fourth-quarter touchdown drive.

There was Anthony Miller, the 185-pound wide receiver, whose 91-yard kickoff return was a wake-up call to the Chargers and their entire Jack Murphy Stadium crowd.

And be sure not to forget Chris Bahr, the 170-pound kicker, whose two extra points--extra-painful extra points--provided the final margin of victory, after his former teammates had sent him off the field on a stretcher.

Even 185-pound Sammy Seale, the San Diego player whose name sounds like an act at Sea World, got into the act against his former teammates, intercepting a second-half Jay Schroeder pass in Charger territory. It might have been a game-saver, this play by Seale. Too bad he didn’t balance the ball on his nose.

Funny how it turned out to be the little people, and not the larger Chargers, who saved the day for Dan Henning’s team, just when it appeared that the big, bad Raiders were about to win for the fifth time in six weeks with the big, good Shell as their coach.

See, the San Diego Chargers aren’t really a football team. They’re a cattle drive.

If this team got paid by the pound, owner Alex Spanos would be in the poorhouse, starving.

The Charger offensive line has Brett Miller, 300 pounds, at right tackle. Next to him is David Richards, the right guard, 310 pounds. The left guard is Broderick Thompson, 295. Left tackle is Joel Patton, 307. The field is barely wide enough for these guys. They look like four parked dump trucks.

On defense, the Chargers come at you with a couple of 270-pound defensive ends and a nose tackle who goes 275. No wonder San Diego’s defense has surrendered only nine touchdowns in its last eight games. This team has an unhealthy appetite. Every loose football must look like the last pork chop on the plate.

Henning even starts a 270-pound running back , Joe Caravello, whose only job is to take up a whole lot of space and throw blocks. Caravello didn’t get one carry Sunday night. He had just one job: McMahon’s bouncer.

But, even with all these bruisers and crushers, San Diego spent much of the first half getting pushed around. At halftime, the Charger offense had 100 yards, total. The kicker was hurt. The snapper was hurt. San Diego looked like a team about to get shut out--like a team that wouldn’t get a point as long as Chris Bahr was being bandaged in the locker room.

Things looked bleak. As Henning said later, borrowing a remark that New York Giants Coach Bill Parcells had used earlier, “It’s always darkest just before it gets pitch black.”

Not so. Not this night.

The Chargers kept coming, after Miller’s kickoff return got them going. The team had just fallen behind, 12-0, and looked ready to phone in the rest of the second half when a little of Miller went a long way. Jamie Holland stiff-armed the last Raider tacklers out of the way, and Miller brought the whole San Diego team to life.

“He put on a big burst of speed, right in front of our bench,” Henning said.

Alive now, the Chargers came to play. They did not yield a point in the second half. They drove to the Raider goal-line, fumbled away the ball, then revved themselves back up in time to block the next Raider punt.

The Chargers looked, well, hungry.

As the end of the game drew near, with the Raiders making one last bid to win the game, 295-pound Rory Graves got called for holding, nullifying a Schroeder gain to the San Diego 22. About all Shell, an old offensive lineman, could do was wince.

Then, with 3 1/2 minutes to go, the Chargers needed six yards on third down to keep from punting. McMahon went back to pass. He looked for Anthony Allen, who had not caught a ball all night. Allen weighs 182 pounds. On San Diego’s sideline, they probably could use him for a toothpick. But he caught the big pass, for 11 big yards.

The Raiders never got their hands on the football again.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Shell said. “It’s not the end of the season.”

No, of course not.

But that didn’t make it any easier to swallow.