Raiders Win by a Whisker, 17-16 : Pro football: Seahawks come close but Kasay’s missed field goal is the difference in the victory for L.A.

Raider quarterback Jeff Hostetler has decided he won’t shave until his team loses.

He still has his beard this morning, but only by a hair.

When John Kasay’s 43-yard field-goal attempt sailed just wide right with nine seconds to play, the Raiders were finally able to celebrate a 17-16 victory on Sunday that left them at 9-6 and left a Kingdome crowd of 53,301 stunned and silent for the first time all evening.

“We don’t tend to make things easy,” said Coach Art Shell, the sweat from the tension-filled ending still on his face moments after the game.

It took a 77-yard, fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Hostetler to Tim Brown to finally put the Seahawks away.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After all, the Seahawks were coming into the game with a 6-8 record. They were coming in with 16 injured players, including eight starters. They were coming in with a green quarterback who was making only his fourth career start in four years.

They were coming in with an offense built around a running back playing with two broken ribs, who was limited even further as the evening wore on by a twisted ankle.

Some green quarterback.

Some injured running back.

Chris Warren, broken ribs and twisted ankle and all, rushed for 122 yards, averaged 5.1 yards per carry, and scored on a 33-yard run.

Quarterback Dan McGwire, filling in for injured starter Rick Mirer, completed only 14 of 34 passes for 166 yards without a touchdown. But he put together the crucial final drive that nearly won the game.

It might have been easier for the Raiders if they had been able to keep their offensive line together. That line has suffered all season from injuries and inconsistency.

But Sunday night provided the line its biggest test. It’s bad enough coming into the Kingdome where the decibel level of the crowd has left more than one offensive line unable to hear the desperate cries of its quarterback, yelling signals accompanied by background noise as loud as a waterfall.

That’s the way it is under the best of circumstances. Sunday night, the Raiders faced the worst of circumstances.

Left tackle Gerald Perry was knocked out of the game in the second quarter because of a concussion when he was hit in the head.

His replacement, Robert Jenkins, was thrown out of the game in the third quarter when he was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct.

That forced Shell to move Greg Skrepenak from right tackle to fill in for Jenkins at left tackle, Kevin Gogan from right guard to right tackle, and veteran Max Montoya in at right guard.

Somehow it all worked when it had to, although Hostetler was sacked five times.

“We were in an awkward position,” Gogan said. “They were able to pin their ears back and come because they knew we had to throw.”

It was on one of those Seahawk sacks that Jenkins lost his cool and his chance to finish the game.

When Antonio Edwards celebrated over the fallen Hostetler after recording a sack, Jenkins shoved Edwards, bringing Seattle’s Rufus Porter into the act with a shove of his own.

That was it for Jenkins, who was given the first ejection of his professional career.

“I don’t think a guy should celebrate,” Jenkins said. “But it seems to be the thing going on in the league this year.”

The Raiders took the early lead before all the problems with the offensive line began, Harvey Williams, who led the Raiders with 93 yards rushing, scored on a five-yard run.

Kasay answered with a 41-yard field goal.

Jeff Jaeger’s 24-yard field goal gave the Raiders a 10-3 lead, but Warren’s run evened the game before halftime.

Getting the ball back at their own 18-yard line with less than a minute to play in the half, the Raiders chose to run out the clock on the ground and take the tie into the locker room.

Two more Kasay field goals, from 50 and 33 yards, put Seattle on top, 16-10, until Hostetler and Brown pulled the Raiders back on top with one blistering throw.

“I held the strong safety as long as I could,” said Hostetler in explaining why he looked left before going back to Brown down the right sideline. “Then, I let it fly and Tim caught it in stride.”

It sure looked like the Seahawks were done. Especially when a fumble, consecutive penalties and an incomplete pass left them with a fourth and 17 at their 19-yard line with 1:34 to play.

But McGwire completed passes of 19 and 32 yards to Kelvin Martin.

Two runs by Warren put Kasay in position. He had already made several booming kicks. The two sides lined up and Kasay swung his leg.

“I hit it good,” he said. “It was a great snap and a great hold. This is a crazy game and I don’t know if I’ll ever understand it.”

While Kasay tried to figure it all out, Raider special-teams player Dan Turk stood over his Seattle counterpart Trey Junkin and yelled, “You lose, Junkin.”

The Seahawk responded with a slap against Turk’s helmet.

Turk never felt it. He was too busy enjoying the razor-thin victory.