Raiders Still Unable to Figure Out the Broncos

By ROBYN NORWOOD

Nov. 14, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

DENVER —

Another Monday night, one final visit to Mile High Stadium.

One more Oakland Raider loss.

If ever there was a season the Raiders thought they could break the grip Mile High has had on them since 1994, this was it.

This is the year they had the team to do it, and this time they rallied from two touchdowns behind in the fourth quarter to tie the score with 1:06 to play--only to watch Jason Elam slam the door with a 41-yard field goal as time ran out to give the Denver Broncos a 27-24 victory.

Elam’s kick sent a crowd of 75,084, which sat through temperatures in the teens, into wild celebration, though this time there were no snowballs to throw.

This was celebration enough: The hated Raiders entered the game with an 8-1 record.

They left it 8-2, and both losses are to the Broncos.

“It was a win we had to have to stay in the hunt,” Denver Coach Mike Shanahan said after the Broncos kept their playoff hopes alive by improving to 6-4.

They did it with a quarterback who played with a partially separated shoulder after getting a numbing shot in the first half, and they might be without Brian Griese on Sunday against the San Diego Chargers.

Griese suffered the injury on a sliding play on the sideline in the first quarter, went into the locker room and returned to pass for 262 yards.

“This was not a game I wanted to miss,” he said. “Anything possible I could do to get in and help my team win, I was going to do it.

“I really can’t tell you what’s going to happen now. I’ve never had anything like this. I’m going to do everything I can to get back.”

The Raiders played without kicker Sebastian Janikowski, hospitalized last week because of a bacterial infection in his left foot that caused him to sit out the previous game as well.

They also played without running back Tyrone Wheatley, hobbled by two sprained ankles, and struggled to run the ball without him.

Between them, those two were responsible for more than 43% of the Raiders’ scoring.

Yet the Raiders still managed to lead, 10-7, at halftime, only to fall behind in the fourth quarter, 24-10.

The game seemed to turn in the third when Bronco linebacker Ian Gold blocked a punt, scooped the ball up at about the 12-yard line and carried it in for a touchdown.

It was the first blocked punt returned for a touchdown by a Bronco since 1979, and it gave Denver a 17-10 lead. The Broncos added to their lead on a 12-yard touchdown pass from Griese to Byron Chamberlain early in the fourth quarter.

But the Raiders weren’t dead.

With 6 1/2 minutes to play, they cut the lead to 24-17 on a one-yard run by Zack Crockett--his second touchdown of the game--on a drive keyed by a 15-yard pass from Rich Gannon to Andre Rison and a 14-yard pass to Tim Brown, who caught 10 passes for 122 yards.

Gannon, who passed for 382 yards--completing 30 of 53 passes with two interceptions--connected with Brown on a 22-yard touchdown pass play with 1:06 left.

It took a fourth-and-two pass from the 26 that went for four yards to set that up.

But the Raiders have to look back to the touchdown they didn’t score.

Early in the fourth quarter, they got new life with a 49-yard gain on a pass from Gannon to Rison that gave the Raiders a first down at the 11-yard line.

But Oakland couldn’t score, as Gannon threw four consecutive incomplete passes, with Napoleon Kaufman, Wheatley’s replacement, dropping a second-down pass shy of the goal line and Gannon overthrowing Brown in the end zone.

Then, going for it on fourth down with about 12 minutes left, the Raiders thought they had a pass-interference penalty in the end zone--only to see the flags picked up because the Broncos’ Keith Traylor tipped the ball at the line of scrimmage.

That wasn’t it--but it was the play the Raiders will look back on.

They also must look back on three turnovers, starting with a Gannon pass that was intercepted by Ray Crockett on the first series, setting up the Broncos’ first touchdown, a five-yard run by Terrell Davis, who finished with 68 yards rushing.

But it was Griese who drove the Broncos for the final touchdown.

“What is it about the Broncos that the Raiders can’t overcome?” Raider defensive back Anthony Dorsett said after the team’s seventh loss in a row to Denver.

“I mean, somebody tell me because I really don’t know. I’m not trying to take anything away from them, but I’ve seen better teams.”

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Thrown for a Loss

With the defeat Monday night, Oakland has lost seven games in a row to Denver. A look:

Nov. 24, 1997

at Denver 31, Oakland 3

Sept. 20, 1998

Denver 34, at Oakland 17

Nov. 22, 1998

at Denver 40, Oakland 14

Oct. 10, 1999

Denver 16, at Oakland 13