This Time, Chiefs Were Ready for Marinovich : Raiders: As a matter of pride, safety Cherry spent time studying the rookie quarterback on videotape.

Quarterback Todd Marinovich looked dejected as he walked to his stall in the Raider locker room. Marinovich appeared in a state of shock after throwing four interceptions and losing a fumble as the Chiefs defeated the Raiders, 10-6, in an AFC wild-card playoff game Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium.

“I didn’t want to take that uniform off,” Marinovich said. “I hate losing. I didn’t want the season to end so quickly. It’s hard to end it that way. We should be playing next week. We’re too good a team to lose.

“It’s really disappointing. It hurts a lot. I’ll never forget this one. I wish I could have performed better, but it’s over and I’m excited about the confidence the guys have in me. In order to get to the top, you’ve got to go through these things.”

Asked to grade his performance in his second NFL start, Marinovich said: “It’s a fail, because we didn’t win. It’s either pass or fail. That’s the way I look at it.”

But despite Marinovich’s five turnovers, he put the Raiders in a position to win during the fourth quarter, taking them from their 20 to the Kansas City 24. But four consecutive Raider penalties pushed them to their 41; linebacker Lonnie Marts then ended the drive, intercepting a pass by Marinovich that was deflected off the hands of tight end Ethan Horton at the Raider 46 with 2:15 remaining.

“That last drive I thought I was going to be leading them down there for a score,” Marinovich said. “When we got the ball down there, our whole team felt we had the game. But after that, things fell apart. It was no one’s fault at the end.”

The Raiders consoled Marinovich, who completed 12 of 23 passes for 140 yards and was sacked twice for 16 yards.

“I thought he competed like a monster,” quarterback Jay Schroeder said of Marinovich. “The guy hung in there and kept fighting and fighting and fighting. He competed exceptionally hard. I think he’s going to be around a long time.”

Wide receiver Tim Brown put his arm around the rookie quarterback after he threw his third interception.

“I told him to keep his head up,” Brown said. “He’s going to have a great career. I think the best thing about it was to see after the game how bad it hurt him and how bad he was disturbed by how he had played.

“He may not have played the way he played last week, but you can’t blame all that on Todd, because we didn’t do some things to help him out. When you look at the stats, it’s going to say that Todd Marinovich had four interceptions, but you don’t know how many of those can be attributed to us.”

After Marinovich passed for 243 yards and three touchdowns in a 27-21 loss to Kansas City at the Coliseum last week, the Chiefs altered their pass defense for Saturday’s rematch, moving safety Deron Cherry closer to the line of scrimmage to enable him to get a better read on Marinovich.

The plan worked. Cherry intercepted two first-half passes from his “lurk” position. Cherry stopped the Raiders’ first drive when he stepped in front of Brown at the Raider 40 and intercepted Marinovich’s pass, returning it 17 yards to the Raider 23.

“We were playing lurk coverage, where we play man-to-man and I was free to read the formation and help out,” Cherry said. “All I was doing was reading the receiver and reading the quarterback’s eyes.”

Cherry’s other interception set up the game’s only touchdown. Marinovich hurried the pass because of a blitz and Cherry returned the interception 29 yards to the Raider 11, where he was pushed out of bounds by Marinovich. Steve DeBerg threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Fred Jones on the next play, giving Kansas City a 7-0 lead with 5:07 remaining in the half.

Cherry said he spent a lot of time studying videotape of Marinovich.

“I was pumped up because everyone was talking about how he shredded us up last week,” Cherry said. “People were saying that he burned the safeties. I have a lot of pride, and when you get talked about, you want to do something good.”

Did the Raiders consider replacing Marinovich with Jay Schroeder after Marinovich turned over the ball on three of their first four drives, with two interceptions and a fumble?

“Why do you want to start that?” Schroeder asked. “Do you think it was his fault? The man played a hell of a football game.”

After Marinovich took the Raiders 65 yards for Jeff Jeager’s 32-yard field goal on their final drive of the first half, he opened the third quarter with a 62-yard, 11-play drive that led to Jaeger’s 26-yard field goal. That made the score 7-6.

But the Raiders turned over the ball on their final three possessions as running back Marcus Allen lost a fumble and Marinovich threw interceptions.

Marinovich took the Raiders from their 33 to the Kansas City 24 on their first possession of the final quarter, but linebacker Chris Martin sacked Marinovich and cornerback Eric Everett intercepted Marinovich’s pass on the next play. The Raiders’ final drive ended with Marts’ interception.

Marts said that Marinovich will be a good quarterback.

“He’s great,” Marts said. “He’s going to be a good one. He’s just got to relax and get some experience under his belt.”