Bad Case of Bungles Stops Raiders Cold : Pro football: Cincinnati gets its first victory as L.A. misses four field goals and drops at least that many passes, 16-10.

At 0-10, the Cincinnati Bengals seemed to have nothing going for them.

No victories.

No respect.

No hope.

Until they met the Raiders.

It was the winless Bengals against the punchless Raiders Sunday on a cold, snowy afternoon at Riverfront Stadium.

But the Bengals warmed the collective hearts of a faithful crowd of 43,272 by pulling off a stunning 16-10 upset.

This one really hurt the Raiders. Locked in a tight struggle for a playoff spot, they could ill-afford the loss that dropped them to 6-5.

To lose to the NFL’s worst team at the worst time made it their worst performance of the season.

Actually, receiver Tim Brown went one step further, calling it “the worst game of my career .”

There was a lot of head shaking and hand wringing in the Raiders’ locker room afterward.

“They needed to get a victory,” Raider linebacker Winston Moss said of the Bengals. “You know they were not going to go 0-16. . . . But we didn’t answer their level of play. Their season is over. We got too much to play for. This is embarrassing.”

It was a day of missing bodies, missed opportunities, missed passes and missed field goals for the Raiders.

Nothing had seemed to go right for them since they set foot in this city on Friday.

Napoleon McCallum, their short-yardage back, was struck with stomach pains that turned out to be appendicitis. He was operated on Saturday.

Sunday, the Raiders learned they would be without offensive tackle Gerald Perry, who left the team upon learning of the death of a brother.

The Raiders were also without receiver Alexander Wright, whose sprained ankle kept him on the sidelines.

Add to all that the winter conditions that didn’t favor a Southern California team and the fact that the Bengals had dedicated the game to the son of quarterback Jay Schroeder--6-year-old Chris, who had a benign brain tumor removed last weekend--and it didn’t take a Las Vegas oddsmaker to smell an upset in the making.

With a swirling wind, snow flurries and an icy, damp surface, the Raiders figured it might be best to stay on the ground. After all, they had gained more than 100 yards rushing in each of their last three games. And they were facing the league’s worst rush defense, a team that had surrendered an average of 147.7 yards per game on the ground.

But not Sunday.

Adding a fifth lineman, the Bengals were determined to make their stand at the line of scrimmage.

Faced with a third-and-one at the Cincinnati 23-yard line on their first drive, the Raiders handed the ball to Greg Robinson, their leading rusher.

But he ran into linebacker Alex Gordon and safety Darryl Williams and was thrown for a loss.

No problem.

The Raiders have an extra weapon in Jeff Jaeger, the AFC’s leading field-goal kicker. Since missing one opening day, Jaeger had made 22 of 24 attempts. He kicked four in last week’s victory over the San Diego Chargers.

But Sunday, Jaeger missed to the left from 41 yards out at the end of that first drive and subsequently missed three more times before making a 34-yarder at the end of the game.

Afterward, Jaeger refused to point a finger at the wind, the snow, the slippery artificial turf or any other external factor for his worst day of the season.

“I’m not going to blame the weather,” he said. “It was me. When each of them came off my foot, I thought I had made them.”

So what was the problem?

“I wish I knew,” said Jaeger, palms pointing upward.

Cincinnati took the field with a hot kicker of its own. And he stayed hot.

Doug Pelfrey began play having connected on 12 straight field-goal attempts. He made it 13 in a row by hitting a 45-yarder in the first quarter to tie a club record. Pelfrey later added field goals of 34 and 44 yards.

The Bengals got their only touchdown on a one-yard run by Eric Ball in the second quarter.

But with all their troubles, the Raiders still could have hung on for the victory if they could have only hung onto the ball.

Denied running room, they went to the air. Time and again, quarterback Jeff Hostetler would fade back, try to avoid a ferocious rush that resulted in four sacks, spot a receiver and let go of the ball, only to have it slip out of the grasp of a teammate.

Nobody seemed able to hang on. Not Ethan Horton. Not Rocket Ismail. Not James Jett. Not even Brown, the most reliable receiver on the club.

“It was a frustrating day,” said Hostetler, who wound up completing only 12 of 32 passes for 220 yards.

One play typified Hostetler’s teeth-gnashing afternoon. Trying to get his club back in the game after falling behind, 10-0, in the first 30 minutes, Hostetler completed a 50-yard pass to Jett on the Raiders’ first drive of the third quarter. Jett dove at the Cincinnati five-yard line with the ball in his possession, rolled over and came up empty-handed. The loose ball was recovered by Bengal defensive back Fernandus Vinson.

Hostetler scored the Raiders’ only touchdown, breaking a nine-quarter drought, on a quarterback draw from the Cincinnati four-yard line in the final quarter. The Raiders were driving again in that quarter when Hostetler hit Brown with a pass that the receiver grabbed, lost, tipped up in the air and lost again, with Bengal linebacker James Francis finally picking it off.

That sums up in the day in microcosm.

When it was over, Schroeder took home a game ball the team awarded to his son. It was a day Chris Schroeder wouldn’t forget.

And, depending on how they ultimately finish the season, a day the Raiders might long regret.