Tables Turned on the Raiders : Pro football: After watching the Chiefs beat Bears, they must beat Chargers to win the AFC West title and its perks.

One day after the Chicago Bears offered quarterback Mike Tomczak’s five-for-23 performance to Kansas City at Soldier Field, the Chiefs settle around their televisions to await their futures and protest the quarterback shenanigans involved in today’s now all-deciding game between the Raiders and San Diego Chargers at the Coliseum.

For the second time in two weeks, the Chiefs postponed the outcome in the AFC West with a victory, beating the Chicago Bears, 21-10, on Saturday. Now Kansas City’s fate rests in the hands of a Charger team that has perhaps abandoned the spirit of fair play with the decision to start rookie quarterback John Friesz against the Raiders in his NFL debut.

The Chargers (6-9) reserve the right to play out a lousy season any way they choose, but is this any time to hold a tryout camp? It depends on which side of the Rockies you take center snaps. If the Raiders win, the division crown is theirs, along with its first-round playoff bye. So, bring on the John Frieszes of the world and any other player buried on San Diego’s depth chart. If the Raiders lose, Kansas City wins the West and the Raiders advance to the playoffs as a wild card.

So, the Chiefs lodge complaints. They can’t believe San Diego would throw Friesz to the Raiders with a perfectly healthy Billy Joe Tolliver on the bench.

The Raiders might argue their consciences are clear considering that the Chiefs were handed the gift of Tomczak, who surely couldn’t have played any worse in Saturday’s loss to Kansas City than Friesz might today against the Raiders.

You think the Raiders didn’t want to clinch the AFC West in their living rooms?

Well, they claimed all week they were out to beat the Chargers, no matter the stakes.

“We need to play as if we are in the playoff chase,” defensive end Greg Townsend said. “Because that’s what we’re getting ready for, going into the playoffs. We need a win so that we have that attitude for winning. We need to get ready for other things.”

The Raiders don’t mind that San Diego has chosen to start Friesz, except that he hasn’t left much of a celluloid trail. Football coaches are movie hounds, notorious for filming anything that moves on a football field for the purposes of later scrutiny.

Friesz has few football fingerprints, unless you’re satisfied in breaking down four passes he threw in exhibitions. Oh, don’t forget that summer scrimmage he played at Flagstaff, Ariz. “There’s not a whole lot,” Raider Coach Art Shell admitted.

What the Raiders know: Friesz is right-handed, 6-foot-4 and 209 pounds. He looks like a quarterback. He passed for more than 10,000 yards at the University of Idaho, a division I-AA school, so apparently he can locate the seams on the ball. The Chargers selected him in the sixth round, so this isn’t Troy Aikman. San Diego stashed Friesz on injured reserve Sept. 4 for future considerations, never thinking they would be considering this soon.

If Friesz seems rusty, it’s because he did not take a snap with the first-team offense until this week, and then it wasn’t a pretty picture. Let’s just say the Raiders’ leading sacker, Townsend, did not lose sleep this week worrying about Friesz.

“If he was good, and I’m not saying the guy’s not good, but if he was good enough to give us a lot of problems, they would be playing him (before today),” Townsend said.

Even San Diego Coach Dan Henning admits Friesz is “raw as an egg.”

So is this a future quarterback or the makings of an omelet? That’s what Henning intends to find out at the expense of one regular-season NFL football game.

Henning thought he had his future quarterback in Tolliver, but Tolliver has exasperated his coach so thoroughly in recent weeks with crippling mistakes that Henning, with all the tact of a schoolmarm, rapped him on the knuckles this week and sent him to the bench.

Tolliver’s final mistake was an interception thrown last week with 1:48 remaining in a 24-21 loss to Kansas City. The Chargers were driving for what could have been the winning touchdown when Tolliver launched a throw that passed 15 feet over the head of the nearest Charger into the waiting arms of Chiefs’ safety Deron Cherry.

“I fully believe Billy has made excellent progress,” Henning said. “He has to get over that propensity he’s had in the last few weeks of making a rotten throw that takes a drive away that could win the football game.”

Henning said Friesz’s performance today will help determine the future of the franchise, which is asking a lot of a rookie who is just learning the playbook.

“Nothing’s ever easy,” Henning said. “You have to start somewhere. . . . It behooves us to find out as a franchise and as a team . . . whether he is legitimate competition as we develop Billy Joe Tolliver. If he’s not, then we have to find other and more competition.”

The move doesn’t bode well for immediate backup Mark Vlasic, who might be charting his last game from the sidelines.

Henning said the Friesz experiment is not some one-series ploy to complicate Raider preparations.

“He’ll be in there as long as we can compete,” he said. “If I think he’s being a detriment for us competing, then we’d go back to Billy. If we’re in there, and we’re in the ballgame, he stands to play the whole game.”

Raider Notes

Entering the last game of the regular season, receivers Willie Gault and Mervyn Fernandez are tied for the team lead with 49 receptions each. Gault needs 45 receiving yards today to surpass 1,000 for the first time in his career. . . . Tight end Ethan Horton has established his career high for receptions with 31. . . . Quarterback Jay Schroeder needs 313 yards passing today to surpass 3,000 for the season. Schroeder’s nine interceptions are the fewest he has thrown since part-time work during his rookie season in 1985. He has thrown twice as many touchdown passes, 18, in 1990. Schroeder had thrown 13 more interceptions than touchdowns entering the season but has cut the gap to 68 touchdowns versus 72 interceptions. . . . In the race for the team rushing championship, Bo Jackson leads Marcus Allen, 670 yards to 652. . . . The Raiders lead the series against San Diego, 38-21-2. . . . Because of a foot injury, Charger fullback Marion Butts has lost his NFL rushing lead to Buffalo’s Thurman Thomas, who has gained 1,297 yards to Butts’ 1,225. Butts was inactive for last week’s game against Kansas City and is not expected to play today. Neither is defensive lineman Burt Grossman, who suffered cracked ribs last week.