Good News Follows Bad : Raiders: After tough overtime loss to Buffalo, team learns it has qualified for playoffs.

Some coaches make the playoffs and take a Gatorade shower.

Hours after Sunday’s distressing overtime loss to the Buffalo Bills, a game replete with second chances and second-guesses, Raider Coach Art Shell received a late-evening phone call and was informed his team had qualified for the playoffs despite the defeat.

Whoopie. Thanks to a complicated matrix known as the NFL’s playoff system, the Raiders qualified because the New York Jets lost a football game two thousand miles east in Pontiac, Mich.

Not exactly high-noon drama.

“Like the team, I wanted to do it by winning the football game, but we didn’t get that done,” Shell said.

Instead, the night was bittersweet, as the coach contemplated a game in which he would be criticized for conservatism as his Raiders tried and failed to protect a 27-14 second-half lead against the quickest-striking offense of the modern era.

Instead, Shell pondered how he might steer his team clear from a dark corner in the season.

“When I was a player, as soon as the game was over, I’d play it in my mind,” Shell said. “I’d go through the game, scrutinize it, even before the coaches could get to me in the classroom to talk about it. I could tell you everything I did bad. Once you watch the film, it starts to get behind you.”

Instead of popping champagne corks, Shell would consider the cost of Sunday’s losses, both emotional and physical.

There was the psyche of quarterback Jay Schroeder to consider. Did Shell crush a delicate eggshell when he took the game from Schroeder’s hands in the second half, allowing him only four pass attempts? This, after Schroeder had shredded Buffalo in the first?

Schroeder’s last two passes of the game were interceptions, the second leading to the game-winning field goal in overtime. The quarterback who briefly silenced critics in 1990 with 19 touchdowns and nine interceptions now has 14 touchdowns and 15 interceptions . . . with two games left.

Shell on Monday defended his second-half strategy against the Bills.

After taking a 27-14 lead in the third quarter, the Raiders failed to make a first down on four subsequent series. The 12-play breakdown read 10 rushing attempts, one fumbled center snap by Schroeder and one pass.

“We quit throwing the ball because we felt we ran the ball well enough in the first half,” Shell explained. “We wanted to keep our defense off the field as much as possible, by getting first downs running the ball. . . . We had certain situations where we were third and one, third and two. Those are situations to me that you can run the football in.”

No one in Buffalo is arguing.

The medical blotter did not do much to bolster Shell’s disposition.

Guard Steve Wisniewski, a Pro Bowl performer, suffered a sprained right knee similar in severity to the one Howie Long suffered last week.

The prognosis for Long was two to six weeks. Because offensive linemen require less mobility to do their jobs effectively, Wisniewski might be back for the season finale against Kansas City on Dec. 22.

Or he might not.

Tailback Roger Craig suffered a hip pointer. He said he’ll be ready for next week, but Craig would say that while being fitted for a body cast.

Marcus Allen bruised the sore knee that has already cost him eight weeks of the season. Elvis Patterson, the Raider point-man on special teams, pulled a groin against Buffalo. Reserve linebacker A.J. Jimerson suffered a knee strain and is out indefinitely.

“We wanted to be getting healthy this time of year,” Shell said.

Now, the bright side: The Raiders have everything to live for. With two games remaining, the playoff paths lead everywhere.

“The division in my mind is still there,” Shell said. “Or the opportunity to have, if we are the wild-card team, to have the wild card a home game.”

Best-case scenario: The Raiders can still win the AFC West title and secure a first-round bye provided they finish in a first-place tie with Denver, which leads the Raiders by one game with two remaining. The Broncos host Phoenix next week and close on the road at San Diego.

And yes, the Raiders can even avoid a first-round game if, say, they win the division with a record of 11-5 while the AFC Central champions, the Houston Oilers, lose two road games, at Cleveland and the New York Giants.

A more realistic scenario: The Raiders finish as the top wild-card qualifier and host a first-round game against the second wild card, perhaps Kansas City.

Worst-case scenario: The Raiders finish as 9-7 wild cards and face the toughest possible playoff road route: at Kansas City, at Houston and at Buffalo.

The last three games played at those stadiums have resulted in three Raider losses by the combined score of 122 to 41.