Raiders Rebound From 17-0 Deficit in Nick of Time : Pro football: With clock running out, Evans hands ball to Bell for winning touchdown in 24-20 victory over Jets.

Seven seconds to play.

The clock was running. So were the Raiders. Down by three points and poised on the New York Jet one-yard line, the Raiders were staying on the ground.

No timeouts left to plot strategy. No attempt to spike the ball to stop the clock. No field goal to tie the game.

It was going to come down to one play--Nick Bell off left tackle. Victory or defeat hung on one yard.

On the sideline, Coach Art Shell was screaming for a spike pass. At the line of scrimmage, receiver Tim Brown was screaming at quarterback Vince Evans, telling him to look at Shell.

Too late.

An afternoon that had begun in despair for the Raiders and soared to euphoria was ending in confusion.

Evans had gone from backup to hero to potential goat in one crazy Sunday afternoon at the Coliseum.

But somehow, it all came out right for the Raiders.

Bell plunged in behind left tackle Gerald Perry with four seconds to spare to enable the Raiders to rally from a 17-0 deficit to beat the Jets, 24-20, before a crowd of 41,627.

Evans sparked the comeback by coming off the bench in relief of starter Jeff Hostetler to throw a pair of long touchdown passes.

Rookie receiver James Jett came to the forefront with four catches for 86 yards, including a 42-yard touchdown pass play.

And Bell came off five agonizing weeks of recuperation from a hamstring injury to score the winning points.

“As I gave him the ball,” said Evans of Bell, “I said, ‘Run, man, run,’ and he ran and Gerald (Perry) opened up a big hole for him. It was a great victory for this organization.”

Shell, now in his 26th year with the Raiders as a player and coach, went further than that.

“This is one of the biggest wins in the history of this organization,” he said.

It was certainly a crucial victory for this season. After winning their first two games, the Raiders had dropped two in a row.

Now they were back on their home field where they had blown a 13-point, fourth-quarter lead to the Cleveland Browns in their last Coliseum appearance.

The afternoon had all the signs of another disaster. Only the Raiders didn’t wait so long.

They were in trouble from the start. The Raiders turned the ball over three of the first four times they had the ball.

And each time, Hostetler was the guilty party.

He threw two interceptions and also lost the ball on a fumble.

And it cost him.

Former Raider Bill Pickel recovered the fumble at the Raider six-yard line on the first play of the second quarter.

With quarterback Boomer Esiason at the controls of the NFL’s top-rated offense, the Jets scored on their first play from the six, Blair Thomas going around left end into the end zone.

Brian Washington came up with both Hostetler interceptions. The second one was initially tipped by Jet linebacker Marvin Jones. Washington gained control of the ball and raced 62 yards down the left sideline for the touchdown that put New York ahead, 14-0.

The Jets weren’t finished.

Later in the quarter, they recovered a Greg Robinson fumble and turned it into three more points on Cary Blanchard’s 25-yard field goal. But now it was Hostetler who was finished. He had spent the last three weeks attempting to recover from an ankle sprain suffered in the Browns game. But he conceded after Sunday’s game that he wasn’t quite ready to return.

So Hostetler didn’t protest when he was yanked with 11:09 remaining in the second quarter after completing just four of 12 passes for 62 yards with the two interceptions.

“I was not 100%,” Hostetler said. “I gave it my best physically, but I just didn’t have it. I had been pushing myself to get back and maybe my problem was that I was pushing too fast. It was a coaches’ decision (to pull him), but it was the right one. I was giving it everything I had, but I didn’t really have it.”

Evans did.

A week ago, in his first non-strike start in the NFL in a decade, Evans struggled against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Sunday he was sharp from the start, throwing the touchdown pass to Jett to get the Raiders on the scoreboard in the first half and cut the New York lead to 17-7.

Evans struck again the third quarter, hitting Alexander Wright with a 68-yard touchdown pass. Now it was the Raiders’ turn to take advantage of a turnover. Linebacker Joe Kelly recovered a Brad Baxter fumble in the third quarter, enabling Jeff Jaeger to kick the 42-yard field goal that tied the score, 17-17.

Blanchard temporarily put the Jets ahead again with a 20-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter.

Finally came the wild finish. It began at the Raider 28-yard line with 4:29 left.

With 32 seconds remaining, Evans hit Brown on a six-yard pass at the Jets’ one.

The Coliseum clock should have been running, but wasn’t. It did not move until Brown had the ball in his hands.

It read 23 seconds, but should have read seven seconds.

On the sidelines, all Shell heard the officials say was “seven seconds.” He thought they were going to add seven seconds to the clock, moving it to 30.

So in came the running play.

“Quite frankly,” Shell later said, “I got screwed up.”

When he realized what had happened, Shell tried to get Evans’ attention.

Said Evans, “I’m glad he didn’t.”

Raider Notes

Special teams player Elvis Patterson was deactivated after arriving late for a team meeting Friday. Raider sources say he might be suspended or cut. Asked after the game if he would take further action against Patterson, Coach Art Shell said, “I’ll address it later in the week. Right now, I don’t want to say anything that would spoil this victory.”