For Raiders, an Ending Out of ‘Twilight Zone’

New York Jet linebacker Kyle Clifton has called it the game in which time stood still.

Sound like an episode of “The Twilight Zone?” It was like something written by Rod Serling, who probably would have appreciated the bizarre ending.

There were the Raiders on the Jets’ one-yard line Sunday at the Coliseum, trailing 20-17 with no timeouts remaining.

The officials were ordering the scoreboard clock down to seven seconds while Raider Coach Art Shell wanted to know why it wasn’t showing 30 seconds and Jet Coach Bruce Coslet was demanding to know what had become of the missing 25 seconds.

It got even more bizarre.

Not only could Shell not get the clock changed, he couldn’t even get the play changed. He had called a run when he thought there were 30 seconds remaining. Then, he wanted a spike pass to kill the clock.

But quarterback Vince Evans never got the word and stuck with the running play. Tailback Nick Bell, on what was going to be the final Raider play of the game either way, went into the end zone off left tackle to give his team a 24-20 victory.

Twenty-four hours after the game was over, however, the controversy raged on.

Nobody is satisfied.

Not the Jets.

Not the Raiders.

Not even league officials.

What really happened Sunday?

When Evans scrambled to the Jet seven-yard line with 32 seconds remaining, the Raiders used their last timeout.

But when they snapped the ball on the next play, the clock didn’t start. Evans connected with receiver Tim Brown at the one-yard line. And only then, as Brown was going down, did the clock begin moving, running down to 23 seconds before the officials realized there was a problem.

By their own calculations, the officials decided that the clock should show seven seconds.

Shell was confused because he thought he had heard the officials say they were going to add the seven seconds to the 23 already showing, giving him 30 seconds.

“It was fouled up,” Coslet said. “For them to misplace 25 seconds, I don’t know how they could do it. . . . Then to not stop the clock and rewind it?

“I tried to find out what was happening on the field. I don’t think the officials knew what happened.”

Coslet said that the Raiders, in essence, received an extra timeout because the referee did not restart the clock when the ball was spotted at the one. Instead, the clock didn’t run again until the ball was snapped.

“When the referee spots the ball . . . he backs up and winds the clock,” Coslet said. “They didn’t. They just stood there.

“It was a confusing, messed-up situation that never should have happened. It’s a shame. I like to see games decided by the players and there’s some question that happened in my mind. . . . It hurt, it hurt bad . . . they won the game.”

Coslet’s players were equally angry.

Cornerback James Hasty insinuated that Raider owner Al Davis had somehow been behind the faulty clockwork, but the clock operator is employed by the NFL, not the Raiders.

League spokesman Greg Aiello said, however, that the end of Sunday’s game would be reviewed by the league, as are nearly all controversial situations.

“Certainly, if the clock operator is at fault, then we would remind him what his responsibilities are,” Aiello said. “We will communicate with the clock operator at the L.A. Coliseum and review it with the officials.”

Shell said that the officials’ error was in not going to both coaches after the clock was reset, explaining what had happened and informing them that seven seconds remained. “Then you could make a decision,” Shell said.

Had that happened, Shell would probably have tried for the game-tying field goal and the game would have probably gone into overtime.

Instead, it was decided in “The Twilight Zone.”