Fernandez Finds Best Route to End Zone : Raiders: Wide receiver spots flaw in Seahawk defense, suggests play that leads to a 12-yard touchdown pass.

Raider wide receiver Mervyn Fernandez approached Coach Art Shell to suggest a play early in the fourth quarter of the Raiders’ 17-13 victory over the Seattle Seahawks Sunday at the Kingdome.

“Coach, I think I can beat (cornerback Dwayne Harper) on the seven route,” Fernandez told Shell.

“The coaches looked at Mervyn like he was crazy, but they called the play for him,” wide receiver Tim Brown said.

Fernandez’s play called for him to run a “corner” pass route in a seam of the Seahawks’ zone defense. Fernandez thought it would work because of the coverage Seattle deployed.

“I saw that they were in ‘cover eight’ with the corner playing up and the safety playing back, and I knew that we could put the corner in a bind if I ran a (route to the) ‘corner’ (of the end zone) and (wide receiver) Timmy Brown ran a flat,” Fernandez said. “The corner either has to jump up on Timmy or come back on me. Either way I thought one of us was going to be open.”

Harper saw Brown and hesitated, leaving Fernandez open to make a 12-yard touchdown reception which tied the score at 10-10 just 43 seconds into the fourth quarter.

Harper said there was no way he could get to Fernandez.

“It was really a bad break on my part,” Harper said. “We were in a zone and I had the flat, and (Brown) was coming into the flat and I didn’t get a break on the ball.”

In addition to scoring the Raiders’ first offensive touchdown of the season, Fernandez also set up tailback Greg Bell’s game-winning one-yard touchdown run with a leaping, 24-yard reception to the three-yard line. Fernandez went over Harper to make the catch.

“I don’t know how high I was,” Fernandez said. “I just got up high enough to catch the ball. The ball was a little high, and I didn’t think I could keep running and get to it, so I just jumped up for it.”

Harper said he was at a disadvantage because Fernandez, who stands 6 feet 3, is four inches taller.

“There was no way I could make the play,” Harper said. “I was on him, but he jumped over me. A lot of big guys don’t have good speed, but Fernandez can really move. You can’t really tell what type of speed he has. He comes out like he’s not doing anything and all of a sudden there’s a big burst.”

Fernandez, who led the Raiders with four receptions for 93 yards, also had a 45-yard reception in an 80-yard, eight-play drive that culminated in Fernandez’s touchdown catch.

Although it appeared from TV replays that Fernandez did not have both feet inbounds when he made the catch along the sideline, the reception wasn’t reversed because of a communications mixup between referee Jerry Markbreit, umpire Bob Boylston and replay official Bob Beeks.

“It’s over now so I can say that I did have one foot in,” Fernandez said with a laugh. “I was concentrating on the ball. I didn’t know where the sideline was. And when I finally grabbed the ball I had one foot in and didn’t have a chance to get the other one down.”

Although Beeks said he had planned to reverse the play and rule that Fernandez didn’t have both feet inbounds, he was unable to contract Markbreit before the Raiders ran their next play. NFL rules prohibit plays from being reversed once play has resumed.

Boylston killed play with seven seconds left on the 45-second clock as the Raiders were set to run a play after Fernandez’s controversial catch, and Markbreit assumed that the play was being reviewed. But Boylston later said he halted play because the ball had been accidently kicked, and that he was never buzzed to call a halt so that the catch could be reviewed.

When Beeks, upstairs in the press box, saw that the play had been stopped, he assumed that the officials had halted play to allow him time to review the play. But Boylston allowed play to resume, ending the opportunity for review.

“Hey, the officials make mistakes, too,” Fernandez said. “They’ve called stuff that they shouldn’t have called, so I guess they owe me one.”

The Raiders’ leading receiver with 57 catches for 1,069 yards and nine touchdowns last season, Fernandez has become the receiver that quarterback Jay Schroeder throws to in crucial situations.

“Mervyn’s a big-play receiver,” Schroeder said. “It’s the same thing he did last year. When the chips were down, Mervyn came through with big plays.”

But Fernandez downplays his role in the Raider offense.

“I don’t know if I’m a money receiver or not,” Fernandez said. “My role is to catch the ball when they throw it to me, and that’s what I’m doing. They haven’t put a sign up there (above his space in the locker room ) saying I’m the money man.”

Said Brown: “Mervyn . . . didn’t come out of college with all the accolades. So people are saying, ‘who is this Mervyn Fernandez guy?’ But people are going to learn.”