PRO FOOTBALL / DAILY REPORT : RAIDERS : Hostetler Had Seen It All Before

At first, nobody seemed aware of the severity of the injury that left Raider running back Napoleon McCallum helplessly crumpled on the grass of San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on Monday night.

Not 49er linebacker Ken Norton, who lay under McCallum after making the tackle.

Not McCallum himself, who knew only that he had lost feeling in his left leg.

Not the “Monday Night Football” television announcers, who understandably talked on, waiting for McCallum to get up.

But Raider quarterback Jeff Hostetler knew all too well because he had seen it before. Hostetler was a backup quarterback for the New York Giants on another Monday night nine years earlier that will be remembered for the similar, chilling injury suffered by Washington Redskin quarterback Joe Theismann. On that Monday night, Theismann’s leg was accidentally broken by Giant linebacker Lawrence Taylor.

“I didn’t know how bad it was, but I knew something was not right,” Hostetler said Thursday in describing his quick response to McCallum’s injury. Hostetler raced up to the intertwined bodies of Norton and McCallum and told the 49er to stay still.

“He didn’t know what was going on,” Hostetler said of Norton, who didn’t move until he was told he could do so.

“I didn’t want (McCallum) to try and get up and wind up looking at his leg,” Hostetler said. “He was real calm even though he couldn’t feel the leg.”

McCallum is back in Los Angeles after undergoing surgery at the Stanford Medical Center to repair a ruptured artery. He also dislocated his kneecap, but it won’t be known for a while what other damage, if any, may have occurred. An MRI has been done, but doctors believe that the amount of blood lost through the ruptured artery has made an accurate diagnosis impossible for the time being.