Raiders Barely Able to Recover--Again : Pro football: It comes down to another onside kick, but L.A. holds on, 27-20, to improve to 9-5.

Big lead or small one. Big first half or big second half. Easy opponent or tough one. Good day running or good day passing.

It doesn’t seem to matter to the Raiders. They know all too well that they’ll usually be clinging to a precarious lead at the end, one nervous eye on the opponent, the other on the clock.

An opposing onside kick has become a regular, dreaded feature of Raider victories.

In each of the last two weeks and four times in the last seven weeks, the Raiders have found themselves rubbing their hands in the late afternoon chill, preparing to hang onto a victory by hanging onto an onside kick.

So it was once again on Sunday at the Coliseum.

Although they had enjoyed a 14-0 first-quarter lead and a 17-7 second-quarter advantage, the Raiders had to grab an onside kick with slightly more than a minute and a half to go to hold off the onrushing Tampa Bay Buccaneers and secure a 27-20 victory before a crowd of 40,532 in a sloppy, fight-marred, penalty-strewn game that could not be described as anything but ugly.

The Raiders had plenty to be happy about when it was over. They are 9-5 and guaranteed a spot if they win their last two games, against Green Bay next week and Denver the following the week.

But the joy was tempered by the nagging inability to apply a knockout punch to opponents.

“If you let a stray dog sit around,” defensive lineman Anthony Smith said, “he will bite you.”

The Raiders lost an onside kick to the Chicago Bears, but won that game when Kevin Butler missed a field goal in the final seconds. They gained possession on onside kicks to preserve victories over the San Diego Chargers and Seattle Seahawks before doing the same on Sunday.

Will they ever be able to kick the onside kick habit?

“That’s one objective we’d like to accomplish real soon,” quarterback Jeff Hostetler said. “We would like to sit down on the bench with seven or eight minutes remaining and say it’s all over. But in the playoffs, games often come down to the wire, and we’ve had a lot of experience with that.”

Sunday’s game might have been different if the Raiders had been able to generate even a hint of a running game.

But they couldn’t.

Not Nick Bell. Not Randy Jordan. Not Napoleon McCallum.

McCallum at least had the excuse of playing only three weeks after undergoing an appendectomy. And he did score on the ground, getting into the end zone from five yards out to give the Raiders the 14-0 lead after Hostetler had opened the scoring with a 27-yard touchdown pass to Alexander Wright.

But McCallum wound up with only 16 yards in six carries for a 2.7-yard average. Bell gained 14 yards in seven carries, averaging 2.0. Jordan had a grand total of one yard in four carries.

And Hostetler, sacked three times, was credited with minus-14 yards in six carries.

Grand total: A net gain of 17 yards in 23 carries for an 0.7 yard average. Falling forward might be more effective than that.

“That’s terrible,” Coach Art Shell said of the running game. “We just can’t have that. We’ve got to take a look at what we’re doing. We relied on the passing game and we have the receivers to do that, but you want to have a running game.”

The only Raider to distinguish himself on the ground Sunday was Hostetler. Despite the lost yardage on sacks, the Raider quarterback managed to find his way into the end zone on the ground for the fourth consecutive week, going in from a yard out in the fourth quarter to provide the winning margin.

It was Hostetler’s fifth rushing touchdown of the season, setting a new standard for Raider quarterbacks. Hostetler had been tied with Daryle Lamonica and Cotton Davidson.

“I’d rather be passing,” Hostetler said, “but I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Another Raider also set a club record Sunday. Jeff Jaeger kicked two field goals, from 50 and 33 yards, to give him a career high 31 for the season, breaking his own mark of 29 set in 1991.

Jaeger got nine points during the afternoon, giving him a season total of 117 to tie yet another Raider season mark. That one has been held since 1968 by George Blanda.

But as did Hostetler, Jaeger had mixed feelings.

“It’s nice,” he said, “but if you get more field goals, you get more close games. I personally feel good having a good year, but I’d go for a happy medium, have us get a few more touchdowns and make life a little easier.”

Although they were playing a 4-10 team, this was anything but easy for the Raiders, who needed a pair of Buccaneer fumbles deep within their own territory to set up two of the Raiders’ touchdowns.

Quarterback Craig Erickson completed 21 of 34 passes for 295 yards, Reggie Cobb ran for two touchdowns, from five and two yards, and Michael Husted kicked a pair of field goals, from 57 and 31 yards out.

The 57-yarder was a Buccaneer record.

At the end, Husted chose a pop-up rather than a dribbler on his onside kick, but, as he did the week before, Rocket Ismail made the crucial grab to enable the Raiders to run the clock out.

The only question then was whether the game would end peaceably or with yet another fight.

There were fights on the field and fights in the stands. There was a total of 25 penalties for 187 yards, with the Raiders accounting for 12 of those penalties for 102 yards. Raider guard Max Montoya was kicked out for fighting. Tampa Bay linebacker Hardy Nickerson was kicked out for shoving an official. And defensive lineman Nolan Harrison was lucky he didn’t get kicked out after angrily flinging running back Mazio Royster’s helmet across the field.

“When a little Chihuahua is barking in your face,” the 6-5, 290-pound Harrison said of the 6-1, 200-pound Royster, “you want to shut him up.”

But, after the all-too-familiar script, the Raiders were unable to shut up the Buccaneers until the end.

Raider Note

Cornerback Lionel Washington suffered a hip pointer, but said he will be ready for Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers.