AFC NOTES : Bills Give Raiders Credit for Not Giving Up

One thing about beating somebody 51-3: It’s a good chance to rub it in, particularly when the losers have been eliminated for the season.

The Bills, however, did no such thing.

“One thing I have to say about the Raiders, they never gave up,” Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly said. “They fought until the last minute.”

“The Raiders are a classy team and they played tough,” said fullback Jamie Mueller.

And center Kent Hull was even kinder: “We felt the Raiders posed a bigger threat to us than anybody else we played this year. They have a defensive line that I think is the best in the National Football League.”

Dan Fouts, who knows something about putting points on the scoreboard, had stood in awe after watching the Bills dismantle the Raiders’ highly-regarded defense.

“I’ll tell you what, this team here, it can walk on water now,” Fouts said. “And the key thing to winning a Super Bowl is to be hot, and this is a hot team.”

The last team to score as many points against a Raiders’ defense as the Bills, was the Fouts-led Chargers. The Chargers defeated the Raiders, 55-21, in 1981.

Before the game Coach Art Shell said this was the best defense in the Raiders’ history, but Fouts disagreed.

“He may have been hoping,” said Fouts, who works for CBS. “Personnel-wise they are nowhere near what they were. They don’t have Mike Haynes or Lester Hayes. They don’t have Willie Brown. They don’t have the guy who can take Andre Reed out of the game or James Lofton.”

More from Buffalo’s Mueller:

“We gotta win the Super Bowl because then it will be something to hold onto the rest of your life. Nobody remembers the losers in football. They only remember the winners. You get to the Super Bowl, you want to win it. Nobody remembers who was there.”

Beach balls are for Californians. Buffalo fans batted something else around in the stands.

A Bo Jackson inflatable doll.

After completing his first two passes for 52 yards, Raider quarterback Jay Schroeder completed 11 of 29 passes for 98 yards and threw five interceptions to tie an AFC championship game record set by Houston Oiler quarterback Dan Pastorini of Houston in 1978 and tied by Richard Todd of the New York Jets in 1982.

Raider defensive end Howie Long will have surgery this week to repair his broken right thumb, he said after the game.

Long suffered the break in last week’s divisional playoff victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. Long wouldn’t say how ineffective he was playing with the injury.

“You do what you can,” he said. “I was told I was wanted. I guess Howie Long with one hand is good enough. I did what I could.”

Buffalo’s 51 points were the most ever surrendered by the Raiders in a playoff game. The Green Bay Packers scored 33 points against the Raiders in Super Bowl II. . . . The 51 points scored by Buffalo equals the AFC championship game record set by San Diego, which defeated the Boston Patriots, 51-10, in 1963.

Raider tailback Greg Bell, a former Bill, was greeted with boos when he entered the game with 12:06 left.

Playing in his first game since Oct. 14 Bell led the Raiders with 36 yards in five carries. Marcus Allen was held to 26 yards in 10 carries and fullback Steve Smith had 19 yards in four carries. Schroeder and backup Vince Evans each scrambled four times for 33 yards.

With its victory, Buffalo is only the third team with a series edge over the Raiders. The Bills are 14-13 against the Raiders. The Seattle Seahawks are 14-12 and the Philadelphia Eagles 2-1.

It was the first playoff meeting between the Bills and the Raiders.

Times staff writers Chris Dufresne, Chris Baker, T.J. Simers and the Associated Press contributed to this story.