ANALYSIS : Battered, Bruised, Beaten : But Raiders Not Too Tired to Blame

Pointed fingers have been wagging at El Segundo these days--one bony appendage covered in a couple of 17-pound diamond rings comes to mind--but the Raiders have been passing blame the way they have passed the football.

Unwisely, and in the wrong direction.

The subject of their soreness has been their five-game losing streak, a skid which should end Sunday under most unfortunate circumstances.

The Raiders will defeat the vacationing Denver Broncos, the Seattle Seahawks will lose for the 13th time in their last 14 games at Kansas City, and Al Davis will find himself facing a first-round nationally televised waxing in the playoffs.

Better they should pick up on the 18th green, dress quickly and leave before somebody asks for identification. Because this is a team without one, which returns us to the question of whom to blame.

The Raiders have pointed to the loss of Jeff Hostetler, whose prolonged absence led to a stretch in which Raider backup quarterbacks committed 13 turnovers in 14 quarters.

They have pointed to discipline, which has evaporated such that they have committed 49 penalties during these five games--an astounding average of nearly 10 a game.

They have pointed to concentration, lacking so badly that each of the Raiders’ three top receivers--Tim Brown, Daryl Hobbs and Rocket Ismail--have dropped touchdown passes in the last two weeks.

But nobody seems willing to point to the one place where the problems started.

To be a Raider official and point in this direction is to lose a finger. But the suffering has lasted long enough. The truth must be told.

The place is Kansas City. The man is Marcus Allen.

And this is his curse.

Something strange happened when Allen, a future Hall of Fame running back, was run out of town by Davis three years ago after a contract dispute.

Suddenly, Raider running backs have lost their nerve during crunch time. Which was Marcus’ favorite time.

They have been dropped by phantom tacklers in December. Which was Marcus’ favorite month.

They have lost their wind when playing for big money. Which were Marcus’ favorite kind of games.

During the five-game losing streak, running back Harvey Williams has carried the ball 65 times for 258 yards, an average of 52 yards a game. He has scored one rushing touchdown. He has been an embarrassment.

In the team’s previous 10 games, he rushed for 767 yards, or 77 yards per game, with eight touchdowns.

The league can put the pregame show on a stage and the postgame show on the Internet, but the road to the Super Bowl has always, appropriately, been through the dirt. Which is exactly where these Raiders have stumbled.

Bob Golic, a former Raider defensive tackle, is a December kind of player. He knows about playing for the big prize. He looks for the Raiders’ biggest problem and sees it coming out of the backfield.

“You look at the Raider running game, and see it shut down so dramatically, that’s been something,” said Golic, now an announcer for Channel 4 and KMAX-FM. “Once Hostetler got hurt, other teams realized that the Raiders had to beat them on the ground. So they would bring guys up and challenge the Raiders.”

And the top Raider running back has not been up to the challenge. Again. Although not quite as old as the The Curse of the Bambino--the Boston Red Sox have not won a World Series since trading Babe Ruth in 1918--the Curse of Marcus is aging well.

Look at the five games that ended the 1993 and 1994 regular season, plus this current five-game losing streak. In other words, every big game that the team has played since Allen left.

In those games, their leading rusher--Williams, Greg Robinson, Napoleon McCallum and others--has gained 728 total yards. That’s an average of 49 yards per game.

With a total of three rushing touchdowns. In three years.

The Curse of Marcus.

Al Davis will never be allowed to forget.

There are other factors, certainly.

“We’re not the same team we were when we were 8-2, and that’s an oversimplification,” said Coach Mike White Monday, during his news conference the day after the Raiders were embarrassed by 34 points in Seattle. “We’re not executing. I’m not in a mood right now to analyze it.”

One such analysis could start with him. He is a good man and good teacher caught in a difficult situation.

His postgame words have been as tough as any Raider coach in recent memory--can you imagine Art Shell saying that Al Davis’ team “lacked something between the ears”?

But White’s posture on the sideline, where he pleads rather than directs, makes one think that the Raiders don’t quite believe he’s the boss.

Let him fire some guys, Al. Let him fire the uncontrollables who pick up stupid penalties. Fire the nickel and dime players who can’t make tackles. Make the players believe that he, not you, is truly their leader. Then they’ll believe.

White sounds as if he’s ready for that now.

“As we finish the season, I would assume there are some career implications,” White said. “When things aren’t going well, everyone has to be accountable.”

Let White hit harder, Al, and then let the players hit less.

The Raiders are one of football’s few remaining teams that still hold full-pad workouts as much as twice a week late in the season. That worked during the years of shorter schedules, smaller players and fewer turf fields. But now, well, when is the last time you’ve seen the Raiders outplay an opponent in the fourth quarter?

The Raiders will avoid the humiliation of missing the playoffs after an 8-2 start. But they can’t avoid their past (Allen) or their present (Davis).

One gets the feeling both must be exorcised before they can have a future.