Hostetler, Brown Concoct Game-Winning Play on the Fly : Pro football: Raider duo’s shrewd exploitation of minor lapse results in winning score.

With nearly nine minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and Seattle ahead by six points before an excited, noisy crowd at the Kingdome on Sunday night, the Raiders knew they needed a big play on offense.

Quarterback Jeff Hostetler knew it. So did wide receiver Tim Brown.

So on the sideline after a field goal by John Kasay had given the Seahawks a 16-10 lead, Brown talked to Hostetler about a play on the Raiders’ previous drive.

“I mentioned to (Hostetler) that their safety was not getting over fast enough on this certain play and when we run it again for him to give me a look,” Brown said.

On the play, Hostetler takes a quick three-step drop and has the choice of throwing to either Alexander Wright or Brown, who both run five-yard stop patterns on opposite sides of the field.

Against a two-deep zone defense, however, the play changes as Wright and Brown adjust their routes into deep sideline patterns in between the Seahawks’ cornerbacks and safeties.

On first down from their own 28-yard line, the Raiders were penalized for a false start by guard Steve Wisniewski. Now, faced with first and 15, the Raiders called on The Play .

Brown, who had only three catches for 30 yards and had dropped two passes earlier, lined up on the right with Alexander flanked left. Seattle, which had a makeshift secondary because of injuries to three starters, called for the basic first-down defense.

The two key players for Hostetler were Seattle left cornerback Robert Blackmon, who had started the game at strong safety, and strong safety Rafael Robinson.

Hostetler knew that Blackmon’s responsibility was to try to slow Brown and cover the right flat. He also knew that Robinson’s job was to cover the right half of the field deep.

On his drop, however, Hostetler looked away from Brown and faked a pass to trick Robinson into thinking he was throwing to the left side or down the middle.

The move gave Brown enough time to separate from Blackmon and get distance away from a late-charging Robinson down the right sideline in front of the Seattle bench.

“It was a short drop and they were in a two-deep zone,” said Hostetler, who completed 17 of 29 passes for 235 yards. “I made sure that I froze the strong safety (Robinson).”

Instead of lofting a deep pass, Hostetler threw a bullet that caught Brown in stride behind Blackmon. Brown then shook off a desperation arm tackle by Robinson and sprinted into the end zone to give the Raiders a game-winning score.

“Hostetler threw a jet in there to (Brown),” Robinson said. “He pump-faked me and then threw the ball right on the money on a fade route. I tried to get over there to at least stop the play, but I was a little too late.”

Said Brown: “Jeff’s fake must have really worked because the guy who came over just got an arm on me. The throw was just perfect.”

For the Seahawks’ secondary, the play typified their season.

During the off-season, Seattle appeared loaded with talented defensive backs with cornerbacks Nate Odomes, Kirby Jackson, Patrick Hunter and Carlton Gray, and safeties Eugene Robinson, Blackmon and Rafael Robinson.

That was before the injury-bug hit. From Odomes’ season-ending knee injury suffered in a pickup basketball game before training camp to Eugene Robinson’s Achilles’ tendon injury suffered last week at Houston, the Seahawks’ once-proud secondary turned into an injury ward.

“Our secondary has had a rough time this season,” Rafael Robinson said. “From one thing to another, we’ve just had our problems with injuries. At times, we were kind of mixed up out there tonight, but we made the adjustments we needed to make.”

A point that was not lost to Brown.

“At halftime, I was a little frustrated,” Brown said.

“I knew their secondary was down a little bit and I felt that we could have broken them a lot earlier.”