Picture Clears a Bit: Raiders to Play Jan. 13 : Playoffs: The opponent will be Miami, Kansas City or Cincinnati. It cannot be Houston.

The Raiders still don’t know who they will meet in the AFC playoffs, but at least now they know where they are playing and when.

The NFL announced Monday that the Raiders would play host to their first playoff game on Sunday, Jan. 13, at 1 p.m., at the Coliseum.

The Raiders also know this much about their first-round opponent: It will either be Miami, Kansas City or Cincinnati, all previous opponents in 1990, but it cannot be Houston.

Kansas City and Miami, the top two wild-card entrants, will play Saturday at Miami. The AFC Central champion Bengals will play host to Houston, the third wild-card qualifier, in another first-round game Sunday.

Under the new playoff format, the Buffalo Bills, who have the AFC’s best record and home-field advantage for as long as they last in the playoffs, are assured of playing the worst wild-card team remaining after Round 1.

Thus, if Houston upsets Cincinnati, the Oilers would travel to Buffalo the following week and the Raiders would face the winner of the Miami-Kansas City game.

If Cincinnati defeats Houston, the Dolphins-Chiefs winner would go to Buffalo and the Bengals would come west to play the Raiders.

The second scenario would appear more advantageous to the Raiders, who handled the Bengals rather easily in December, 24-7. Also, some might contend that the winner of the Miami-Kansas City game would have a better chance of defeating the Bills in Buffalo than would Cincinnati, which won its division with a 9-7 record. A Buffalo defeat in the first round would also give the Raiders home-field advantage for the AFC Championship game, provided they win their first game.

The Raiders, who clinched the AFC West title Sunday with a shaky 17-12 victory over the San Diego Chargers at the Coliseum, will resume practice this week not knowing which of three possible opponents they will be facing, a situation that doesn’t arise too often.

What’s a team to do?

“You work on fundamentals,” Raider Coach Art Shell said. “You work on things that caused you problems the last two or three weeks. You try to correct those, because teams that you’re going to probably play are going to see those things.”

Shell considers it an advantage to play host to a team the Raiders have already faced this season. The Raiders defeated both Cincinnati and Miami, but were swept by Kansas City in the regular season. One senses that the Raiders would like nothing better than a rematch with the Chiefs.

“The advantage is that you have played them before,” Shell said, “So you understand a little bit as to how to play them, and how they want to try to attack you. A team like Kansas City, they beat us twice, so I wouldn’t see why they would change anything they’ve done. Miami played us a low-scoring game there, so I don’t know if they would change anything. Of course, Cincinnati came out here and gave us some problems, so what do you change? You just try to execute better.”

The Raiders closed the season with five consecutive victories, an impressive feat, although Sunday’s win over the Chargers wasn’t worth remembering.

“It wasn’t the best-played game,” Shell said. “But at the same time, we learned something. We learned that even though things are bad, you’ve still got to make plays at some point during the course of a game like that in order to win. If you do that, that’s the mark of a championship football team: Winning--finding a way to win.”

The Raiders are getting their second bye of the season. The first layoff, which came after Week 7, didn’t go so well.

The Raiders opened the season 6-1, rested and then lost three of their next four games before they rebounded with a strong finish.

Shell said the regular season has nothing to do with the playoffs. “The playoffs is a different entity,” he said. “The level of play has to go so much higher than what it did in the regular season. It has to climb, it has to go up--the intensity of the game itself--because it’s sudden death. You lose and you go home.”

Raider Notes

Besides the eight games within their own division next season, the Raiders will play host to the Rams, San Francisco, Buffalo and Indianapolis. The Raiders will play on the road at Cincinnati, Houston, New Orleans and Atlanta. Dates of the games will be announced next spring. . . . Raider Coach Art Shell said he hasn’t decided what to do with his free roster activation for the playoffs. He said bringing tight end Mike Dyal, who has a pulled hamstring, off injured reserve again is a possibility, although that moved backfired on Dec. 2 in Denver when the team used its final free move to recall Dyal, only to have him reinjure the hamstring in the game. Also rusting on injured reserve is healthy tailback Greg Bell, who seems a distant memory. . . . The Raiders will take today off, practice Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, then take the weekend off before returning to their regular practice schedule next Monday.