ANALYSIS : Breaks Weren’t Enough This Time

For the Raiders, this was an exercise in blown opportunities. They’ve been winning some close games this year that they could, perhaps should, have lost. Against the Kansas City Chiefs Monday night, in their strange 24-21 defeat, they gave it all back.

With reasonably sound football, the Raiders would have scored 49 points, or more, and put Kansas City so far out of it that the other quarterback, Steve DeBerg, couldn’t have come back in a night and a half.

The most damaging of the blown opportunities--because it came in the fourth quarter at a time when the Raider lead had hit 21-10--was the intercepted pass that quarterback Jay Schroeder threw to Kansas City safety Lloyd Burruss.

At the moment it was third and goal for Coach Art Shell’s team at the Kansas City six, with an easy shot at a 24-10 lead in sight if a touchdown play had simply failed.

Instead, after Burruss ran the ball 83 yards, the Chiefs were on their way to the winning two-touchdown rally that surprised them as much, no doubt, as it surprised the team that had led all the way.

But the Burruss play was merely the icing on the cake of the opportunities that the Raiders threw away.

All this happened, too:

--After Raider defensive end Greg Townsend intercepted DeBerg’s second pass in the first quarter, he ran for 31 of the 32 yards he needed for the touchdown that never came.

When Townsend was caught from behind on the Kansas City one, that proved to be the high-water mark for the Raiders on their first drive. In three tries, they couldn’t move the ball three feet, settling there for second best, three points.

--An instant later, after Raider linebacker Aaron Wallace had sacked DeBerg and forced a fumble, Townsend got himself into position to score what might have been his second touchdown in five minutes--but blew it again. Trying to pick up the ball, he bobbled it instead, and the Chiefs fell on it for a safety and a 5-0 Raider lead.

--After the Raiders gave up a blocked conversion try following their first touchdown, their lead was only 11-0. If it should have been 21-0 at that point, it could have been 28-0 a few minutes later in the first quarter when, instead, after coming up to a first down at the Kansas City 16, Schroeder threw an interception to Kansas City cornerback Jayice Pearson.

--Finally, in the fourth quarter, two Raiders let two thrown balls slip through their hands.

At the start of Kansas City’s winning drive in the final 4:32, Raider safety Ronnie Lott made a perfect move on DeBerg’s first pass--to former Ram Pete Holohan--and for a moment Lott had it in his hands for the interception that would have made him, once again, a Los Angeles star. When he couldn’t hold it, Holohan held the deflection, and the Chiefs were under way.

It was a Raider wide receiver, Tim Brown who had the last opportunity to make a helpful play, but couldn’t. The clock showed that 43 seconds remained when Schroeder got the ball for the last time after Kansas City’s go-ahead touchdown, time enough to get the club in position for a tying field goal.

But throwing on first down, he threw it through Brown’s hands to a Chief, safety Deron Cherry, for the interception that ended the Raiders’ last opportunity.

Although they aren’t a trick-play team, the Raiders had two tricks ready for the Chiefs:

--To get the points that elevated the Raider lead to 18-7 in the second quarter, Schroeder, on third and inches, faked a running play and threw down the middle to his fullback, Steve Smith, for an easy 37-yard touchdown.

--Getting themselves in position to raise the score to 28-10 in the fourth quarter, the Raiders asked their punter, Jeff Gossett, to throw the ball to a special-teams player, safety Elvis Patterson.

It succeeded--for 34 yards--but with the touchdown opportunity in sight at the Kansas City five, Schroeder, two plays later, threw it away.

He wasn’t, this night, an opportunist.