Buccaneers Are No Reason to Smile : Raiders: L.A. has played at the level of its competition for most of the season.

Most coaches would salivate. Art Shell frowns.

Most teams would relax. The Raiders get concerned.

Most clubs would figure they had a good chance for victory when playing host to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, winners of only four games this season, second-fewest in the NFC.

The Raiders have to figure they are in for a long afternoon today at the Coliseum.

If there is any absolute in the absolutely erratic performance of the 8-5 Raiders this season, it is that the quality of their opponent pretty much indicates the quality of their performance.

How else to explain a team that loses to the Bengals (0-10 at the time) in Cincinnati and beats the Bills (8-3 at the time) in Buffalo on consecutive weeks?

The only consistency the Raiders have shown is that they play to the level of their opponent. But even in that, there is no real consistency.

Last week’s game was a perfect example. For three quarters, the Raiders struggled against the Seattle Seahawks. But the Raiders scored 17 points in the third quarter, more than they have scored in five games this season.

For 15 minutes, the Raiders looked like the team Al Davis had envisioned when he and his organization remade the club in the off-season.

How can the Raiders bottle whatever it was they had in that point-producing period and unleash it upon demand?

“If I knew the answer to that, I’d be a rich man,” guard Max Montoya said.

The Raiders must come up with the answer if they hope to reach the playoffs. With three games remaining, they are only one game out of the AFC West lead. But with eight teams contending for six playoff spots, the Raiders cannot afford another loss.

Although today’s game looks like the easiest of the remaining three on paper, Shell’s warning that Tampa Bay is “a good football team” is not merely the obligatory coach’s recital to keep his team from lapsing into overconfidence.

The Buccaneers are coming off a 13-10 victory over the Chicago Bears. Tampa Bay has split its last four games, having also beaten the Minnesota Vikings. And the Buccaneers’ two losses in that span were by a total of nine points.

“We kept going and going and (last) week, we finally put everything together and got a feel of how we can play if we execute well,” linebacker Hardy Nickerson said.

Coach Sam Wyche figures his young team is growing so fast that he has already predicted it will be in the playoffs next season.

“We’re going in the right direction,” Wyche said. “Nothing happens as fast as you want it to, certainly not fast enough for our fans who have been waiting a long time to see this thing turned around.”

A long time indeed. Tampa Bay has not had a winning record since 1982 and has had only three in its 18 years of existence.

The Buccaneers have lost nine in a row against the AFC West, 19 in a row on the road against the AFC and 19 in a row against teams from California.

“We have made an awful lot of changes so that some of the old ways of thinking that keep popping up and getting you beat are eliminated,” Wyche said. “I wanted to be able to come to work during those tough times with good solid people who were going to be right there with me and not out trying to find an excuse for losing.”

There are plenty of excuses for Tampa Bay’s losing season. The team’s star offensive lineman, Paul Gruber, sat out the first five games because of a holdout and has since been bothered by a groin pull. Receiver Lawrence Dawsey, safety Tony Covington and fullback Anthony McDowell are on injured reserve. Defensive end Eric Curry is sidelined because of an ankle injury. Defensive lineman Ray Seals, the team sack leader with 7 1/2, is questionable because of a groin pull.

The Buccaneers are 26th in the 28-team league on offense. Quarterback Craig Erickson has thrown 14 touchdown passes, but 17 interceptions. And Reggie Cobb is the runaway team leader with 490 rushing yards, even though he sat out for a month because of a knee injury.

The defensive standout has been Nickerson, a Los Angeles native who attended Verbum Dei High before moving on to Cal. Nickerson had 15 tackles last week against the Bears, has twice had 18 in a game and has already set a team season record with 175 tackles.

Whom he will be trying to tackle today remains a question. Raider tailback Greg Robinson is sidelined after having arthroscopic knee surgery and fullback Steve Smith is questionable because of an ankle injury. Nick Bell will do most of the rushing, with Randy Jordan and perhaps Rocket Ismail getting some work. Napoleon McCallum, recuperating from an appendectomy, might also be ready.

But the biggest question is, will the Raiders?

With this group, you never know.

RAIDERS

TODAY’S GAME

* Opponent: Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

* Site: Coliseum.

* Time: 1 p.m.

* Records: Raiders 8-5, Buccaneers 4-9.

* TV: None.

* Radio: KFI (640), KWKW (1330), KMEN (1290).

* Rosters: C14.