Raiders Don’t Need Extra Motivation Against Chiefs : Pro football: Kansas City has beaten L.A. six times in a row, including last two games a year ago.

Never mind the fact that a loss today would officially eliminate the Raiders from the race for the AFC West title.

Or that a defeat would reduce the Raiders’ chances of getting a wild-card spot from long shot to long shot.

Or that another inept performance might decide the future of some players in silver and black.

Those are all good reasons for the Raiders to beat the Kansas City Chiefs today at the Coliseum.

But here is a more emotional, more basic reason to win: They haven’t done so against the Chiefs in a while. In a long while.

The Raiders haven’t defeated Kansas City since 1989. Since then, the Chiefs have beaten the Raiders six times.

Beaten them in close games. Beaten them in routs. Beaten them in the regular season. Beaten them in the postseason.

And the Chiefs beat them to a pulp the last time they met.

“I hate Kansas City,” Raider quarterback Todd Marinovich said after their last meeting earlier this season.

Of all the Raiders, Marinovich’s fate has been most closely tied to this frustrating run of losses.

In last year’s regular-season finale, with starting quarterback Jay Schroeder sidelined because of two sprained ankles, Marinovich, then a rookie, faced the Chiefs in his first NFL start. But behind running back Barry Word’s 152 yards rushing, Kansas City won, 27-21.

That set up a rematch a week later in the first round of the playoffs.

The Chiefs ended the Raider season by winning, 10-6. Or rather, the Raiders lost it, turning the ball over six times. Marinovich threw four interceptions.

Couldn’t get much worse?

Read on.

In their only previous meeting this season, the Raiders lost to Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium in a Monday night massacre, 27-7, with Marinovich throwing two interceptions. And, before a national television audience, the Raiders suffered the additional indignity of being physically dominated.

It was a low point for the Raiders in a season filled with lows. The defeat dropped them into an 0-4 hole from which they have yet to crawl.

So, for the second time in as many years, Kansas City delivered a crushing blow to a Raider season.

Rest assured, none of that will be forgotten today.

“Any time we play Kansas City, our players get fired up,” Raider Coach Art Shell said. “Emotions are high.”

The teams come to the Coliseum today from separate roads, going in opposite directions.

At 5-7, the Raiders need a good mathematician and an unlikely string of failures by the teams above them to have even faint playoff hopes.

At 8-4, the Chiefs don’t need to worry about other teams. The early-season collapse of the Raiders and San Diego Chargers, and the recent collapse of the Denver Broncos, due to the injury of quarterback John Elway, has left Kansas City atop the AFC West with four games to play.

Such a lofty perch makes Chief Coach Marty Schottenheimer nervous, but he wouldn’t be a true head coach if he weren’t.

Even though Kansas City has won four in a row, Schottenheimer insists he is not satisfied.

“We’ve really not played as well as I think we’re capable of playing other than the Washington game,” he said, referring to a game the Chiefs won, 35-16. “But other than that, we’ve just been kind of scratching around and getting by.”

All that scratching has taken the fight out of the opposition. Kansas City’s powerful defense has given up only 179 points this season, fewest in the division and second fewest in the AFC behind the Pittsburgh Steelers (162 points).

But when it comes to statistics, one need go no further than the turnover column to see the difference between the Raiders and the Chiefs. Kansas City is the best in the NFL in the takeaway/giveaway ratio at a plus 20. The Chiefs have intercepted 19 passes and recovered 11 fumbles, while giving up the ball an NFL-low 10 times.

The Raiders, on the other hand, are near the bottom at a minus 12, ahead of only the hapless Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots. The Raiders have an NFL-low 16 takeaways, including a conference-low 10 interceptions, while giving the ball away 28 times.

That’s been the difference in the Raider season. It has left them on the brink of elimination.

A victory today wouldn’t necessarily turn the Raiders’ season around.

But it sure would make them feel better.