Lewis’ Return Helps Chargers Beat Seahawks : AFC: San Diego quiets Kingdome crowd by scoring 24 consecutive points on way to 31-14 victory.

The San Diego Chargers, losers of eight consecutive games at the Seattle Kingdome, found a way to quiet the raucous fans there Sunday.

All it took was 24 consecutive points on the way to a 31-14 victory over the Seahawks, and barely a whisper could be heard from the crowd of 59,646.

Besides the eight-game losing streak in Seattle, the Chargers (4-5) had lost three games in a row overall to the Seahawks and 10 of the last 12.

But this was over before the fourth quarter. The Seahawks (3-5) crossed midfield only once in the first three quarters and trailed, 31-7.

“I’ll tell you, one of the best things about this win is to see the way that our special teams did the job,” linebacker Billy Ray Smith said. “Because that’s always been Seattle’s trademark. They assume immediately they are going to win that phase of the game outright, and boy, our guys took it to them.”

With 43 seconds left in the third quarter and the Chargers leading, 17-7, Nate Lewis scored on a 63-yard punt return, the Chargers’ first punt-return touchdown since 1987, when Lionel James went 81 yards against the Cardinals.

“I had one in college at Georgia against Clemson for 73 yards,” said Lewis, who was a seventh-round pick from Oregon Tech after transferring from Georgia. “All I had to do was get past the kicker, and no kicker is going to tackle me. That would be embarrassing.”

Lewis, who is projected to make his living in the NFL as a wide receiver, became the team’s punt returner only last week after Scott Schwedes was released.

Lewis has seven punt returns to his credit for an average of 14.8 yards. The New York Giants’ Dave Meggett began the weekend as the NFL’s leading punt returner with an average return of 13.5 yards.

The Chargers scored again 32 seconds later, when defensive lineman Les Miller fell on a Dave Krieg fumble in the end zone.

“I thought we were still in the game when we were down, 17-7,” Seattle Coach Chuck Knox said, “but then in a short span of about three plays they get 14 points.”

Linebacker Leslie O’Neal forced the fumble and was credited with a 30-yard sack. But he would also have been credited with the touchdown had the ball not squirted out from under him.

“I’m just a scoring machine,” Miller said after his third career touchdown. He recovered a fumble earlier this season in the end zone against Pittsburgh and did the same thing against Kansas City in 1987.

The Seahawks had won three of their last four games, and were coming off a bye week. And, at times, it appeared they all hadn’t returned to work.

“The bye didn’t have anything to do with it,” Knox said. “The bye didn’t return a punt on us. The bye didn’t miss a tackle or miss a block or anything like that. They just beat us, and that’s all there is to it.”