Jaeger Gets It Over, Raiders Get It Done : Pro football: His 53-yard field goal with 16 seconds to play beats Broncos and Elway, 23-20. Jett provides big play, turning Hostetler pass into 74-yard score.

Jeff Jaeger’s foot sunk into the turf of Mile High Stadium.

And his heart sunk into his stomach.

After Jaeger had made nine consecutive field goals over five games, the Raiders had called on him to kick one more, a game-winner before a national Monday Night football audience, and he had failed.

Or so he thought.

“I didn’t think I made it,” Jaeger said.

But even though he had hit too far behind his target, churning up a huge chunk of grass and dirt and only a piece of the ball, it just kept going, a line drive hurtling end over end through the thin air, tantalizing a transfixed football audience before finally making it through the uprights 53 yards away for the winning points in a thrilling 23-20 Raider victory over the Denver Broncos before a crowd of 75,712.

The fans got their money’s worth and so did the nation’s viewers in a game that had spectacular scoring plays, controversial calls, bone-rattling sacks and more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie mystery.

The Raiders sacked John Elway seven times. But the Denver quarterback still managed to complete 16 of 30 for 188 yards and two touchdowns.

But Raider quarterback Jeff Hostetler was able to hang in there with his more renowned counterpart, shaking off the effects of yet another blow to his injured right leg to complete 15 of 24 for 264 yards and two big touchdowns of his own.

For the first 30 minutes, the Broncos looked as if they were the not-ready-for-prime-time players. The Raiders dominated everywhere but the scoreboard.

They threw Elway around like a rag doll, protected Hostetler like a precious jewel, moved the ball up and down the field and totally shut down Denver, holding the Broncos to 72 net yards, including a minus-six passing.

Things got so bad for the Broncos, they couldn’t even snap the ball without a hitch.

Yet for all that, Denver headed to the locker room at halftime still in the game, trailing only 13-0.

Hostetler put together the game’s first scoring drive after an Elway interception. It culminated with an 11-yard touchdown pass to Alexander Wright. Wright, matched against Steve Atwater, blew right past the veteran safety. Atwater desperately reached out to grab Wright, but the Raider receiver kicked into another gear and wound up all alone in the end zone.

Jaeger accounted for the other two first-half scores with field goals of 32 and 49 yards.

And in the meantime, the Raiders kept coming at Elway in droves like an invading army. Not even Gary Zimmerman, the four-time Pro Bowler obtained in a preseason trade with the Minnesota Vikings, could hold off the Raiders.

There was Anthony Smith grabbing Elway by the shirt and twirling him around. There was Nolan Harrison chasing Elway into Smith. Before the night was over, Greg Townsend would have three sacks, Smith would have two, Harrison would get credit for 1 1/2 and Howie Long would get credit for the other half-sack. “John Elway is a great quarterback,” Smith said, “and we wanted to let him know we were going to keep the pressure on all night long.”

But in the third quarter, it seemed as if the Raiders’ first-half efforts might have been in vain.

Hostetler was sacked by Greg Kragen, who grabbed Hostetler’s right leg to bring him down. It was a sprained right ankle that had forced Hostetler to miss nearly seven of the last eight Raider quarters.

And, as he limped to the sideline, feeling pain in both his right knee and ankle, Hostetler was afraid he would again be sidelined.

“At first, I was worried,” Hostetler said, “but the pain subsided and I was able to go back in and do the things I needed to do.”

Did he ever.

But not before Denver had stormed back to take the lead on Jason Elam’s 40-yard field goal and Elway’s touchdown passes of 27 yards to Arthur Marshall and two yards to Reggie Johnson.

The Raiders were killing themselves. Elam’s field goal came after Vince Evans, in for one play for Hostetler, threw an interception that bounced out of the hands of Tim Brown into the grasp of safety Dennis Smith. The Johnson touchdown came after a Hostetler fumble inside his five-yard line.

The Raiders protested loudly on the Marshall touchdown. Raider defensive back Derrick Hoskins pulled Marshall down at about the one, but as he lost his balance, Marshall tumbled over Hoskins into the end zone. The officials ruled that Marshall had not actually touched the grass until he landed in the end zone.

The replay seemed to indicate otherwise.

No matter.

The Broncos’ lead lasted only 23 seconds.

Trailing, 17-13, in the fourth quarter, Hostetler and rookie James Jett hooked up on a pass over the middle. Hostetler threw it 12 yards. Jett ran an additional 62, beating three Broncos to make it all the way into the end zone on a 74-yard scoring play to push the Raiders back in front 20-17.

“I’m from West Virginia,” Hostetler said. “He (Jett) is from West Virginia. It was time we hit one.”’

Elam tied the game up with a 37-yard field goal with 5:33 to play, giving Denver 17 points in the final quarter.

But it wasn’t enough.

With 16 seconds remaining, Jaeger connected.

“I didn’t think it was going to make it,” Hostetler said, reinforcing Jaeger’s opinion. “Maybe I prayed it through.”