PRO FOOTBALL DAILY REPORT : RAIDERS This Message Might Fall on Deaf Ears

Holding. False start. Unsportsmanlike conduct. Unnecessary roughness.

For the Raiders, there have been a lot of penalties this season. They were penalized 13 times for 108 yards Sunday against the Rams and have been penalized a league-leading 98 times this year for 761 yards. This is a year after they were penalized 148 times, one short of the league record, for 1,181 yards.

What’s a coach to do?

“You don’t like any penalties,” Art Shell said. “Some of them you can understand, but there are some you can’t ever understand, you can’t live with.

“(We tell them,) ‘Stay onsides. Don’t move in motion. Don’t hold.’ These are the things that we preach on. . . . We try to get them to understand how we are hurting ourselves with those things.”

*

Receiver Tim Brown is known mostly for his receptions, but he is also a punt returner and is quietly having an excellent year in that category.

The Raiders’ all-time punt-return leader with 2,220 yards, Brown is leading the AFC with a 13-yard return average, having returned 20 punts for 260 yards.

*

Quarterback Jeff Hostetler leads the AFC in third-down passing efficiency with a 102.1 rating. Next is the Miami Dolphins’ Dan Marino with an 89.3 mark.

The NFL leader is the San Francisco 49ers’ Steve Young with a 134.9 rating.

Hostetler has thrown seven of his 13 touchdown passes on third down.