Off the Field, Allen Plays Important Role : Raiders: Although he takes no credit, his teammates say he served as inspirational leader.

He didn’t carry the ball Sunday. He didn’t catch a pass. His name doesn’t appear anywhere in the offensive statistics.

And yet, if the Raiders were awarding only one game ball for Sunday’s 13-10 victory over the New York Giants, many would gladly hand it to Marcus Allen.

This certainly hasn’t been the best of seasons for the leading rusher in Raider history.

He held out for much of training camp, then suffered two leg injuries before the start of the season.

He began the season as the third-string tailback playing on the special teams.

He was known to be unhappy with some of the personnel decisions of the front office, although he would never talk about it. Allen, who had proven himself so adept at avoiding would-be tacklers, was just as skillful at avoiding questions about his relationship with owner Al Davis.

But Allen put it all aside this week and focused on the business at hand: breaking his team’s eight-game losing streak.

Allen called at least three players-only meetings. He tried to keep the team’s emotional level high with words of inspiration.

Allen was a strong supporter of Terry Robiskie, the offensive coordinator. But when Robiskie was replaced last week by Tom Walsh in an effort to shake up the club, Allen didn’t let any harsh feelings affect his campaign.

“This is the first week I felt the wrath of Marcus Allen,” Anthony Smith said. “He brought us together as players off the field. He made it happen.”

Tim Brown agreed.

“He’s quite an inspirational leader,” Brown said of Allen.

Although he didn’t dispute that point, Coach Art Shell tried to spread the credit around a little. “Marcus is inspirational and that’s great,” Shell said. “But they all talked all week about what the game meant to us.

“Marcus did a lot of talking. He always has and the guys respect him a lot. But the bottom line is, I think the guys have to respect themselves.”

As for Allen, he was taking no credit. Asked about his inspirational role as he left the locker room Sunday, Allen said: “I didn’t do anything. Those were just words.”

And with that he was gone, elusive as ever.

There were a lot of smiles around the team’s El Segundo training headquarters Monday.

Especially when the comments of New York linebacker Pepper Johnson were brought up.

Johnson ridiculed the Raiders after Sunday’s game, referring to them more than once as “ducks.”

What did that mean? Nobody in silver and black seemed to know.

“That’s a new one on me,” Howie Long said.

Said Shell: “I’ve been called a lot of things, but not a duck. I don’t respond to stuff like that. That’s an emotional player who just lost a football game he thought he should have won. We felt we should have won. I’m not going to respond to that. That’s trash.”

Several Raiders were mentioned by Shell for Sunday’s performances. The highest praise went to defensive lineman Nolan Harrison, who came back from a knee injury and twice sacked Phil Simms.

Harrison, a second-year player, applied pressure all day in what Shell called “the best game he ever played.” Shell was also impressed with quarterback Todd Marinovich, who toned his visible emotions way down from a week earlier.

Against the Kansas City Chiefs on the previous Monday night, Marinovich seemed out of control at times, ranting and raving at the officials and opponents as the game slipped away.

“This game, he was much more under control,” Shell said. “He’s a young guy and he’s going to improve every time out.”