Raiders host familiar foe Sunday: Jets

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[i:0908ccc480]Raiders host familiar foe Sunday: Jets
By Jerry McDonald STAFF WRITER - timesstar.com
The scouting process got a lot easier for the Oakland Raiders on Sunday. [/i:0908ccc480]

For much of the morning, it looked as if the mysterious Cleveland Browns would be Oakland's first playoff foe. In the afternoon, things sorted themselves out in a familiar fashion.

It's the Raiders and New York Jets, Sunday (1:30 p.m.), at Network Associates Coliseum.

Again.

It will be the fourth time in a little more than a year the Jets have come to the Coliseum, a span of 20 regular- and post-season games.

"The guy at the coffee place, Starbucks, he'll have my table ready when I go over there on Saturday," Jets coach Herman Edwards told reporters in New York. "They know we're coming."

The Jets were sent west when the Pittsburgh Steelers overcame a 17-point deficit to beat the Cleveland Browns 36-33. The Browns would have played in Oakland had they won.


The Raiders haven't played Cleveland since Sept. 24, 2000, when the Browns were a second-year expansion team en route to a 3-13 season.

New York is coming off a 41-0 wild-card win over Indianapolis on Sunday and has won seven of its last nine games.

Raiders coach Bill Callahan did not make himself available to the media Sunday, but wide receiver Tim Brown took exception to the notion that the Jets are the NFL's hottest team in an interview with CBS-TV during halftime of the Steelers-Browns game.

"That's funny, because we went 7-1 in the last eight games of the (regular season). I think they went 6-2," Brown said. "No one's giving us credit for what we did, but that's fine.

"We want to be the underdogs. We want people to think these old guys can't get it done. We feel as if we're a very good team, and if we go out and play the type of football we're capable of playing, we should win the game."

After starting the season 1-4 and at one point falling to 2-5, New York has outscored its past three opponents 113-34 when a loss would have eliminated them from the Super Bowl chase.

The Raiders beat New York 26-20 on Monday night, the fourth win in a five-game winning streak that helped them grab their third consecutive AFC West title.

Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon was 31-for-42 for 342 yards and a touchdown. On that night, Brown caught eight passes for 90 yards -- including the 1,000th of his career early in the third quarter.

The Jets led 10-6 at halftime, but on Oakland's opening drive of the third quarter, Brown caught a 6-yard pass to the New York 26. The game was stopped for a ceremony honoring his 1,000th catch, and after its conclusion, Gannon hit Jerry Rice on a 26-yard scoring play for a lead the Raiders never relinquished.

After the game, Jets nose tackle Josh Evans complained about the length of the Brown ceremony and about what he called unethical blocking tactics by Oakland guards Frank Middleton and Mo Collins.

Last season, the Jets knocked the Raiders out of home-field advantage for the playoffs with a 24-22 win in the regular-season finale, then lost to Oakland 38-24 six days later in the wild-card round.

In the regular-season game, John Hall kicked a 53-yard field goal with 59 seconds to go after Gannon overthrew a wide-open Roland Williams for a potential first down that may have let Oakland to kill the clock.

Gannon missed almost nothing in the playoff game, completing 23 of 29 passes for 294 yards and three TDs. Rice caught nine passes for 183 yards and a touchdown.

New York climbed to within 31-24, but Oakland put the game away when Charlie Garner ran 80 yards for a touchdown with a toss sweep against an inside blitz on third-and-11.

The Jets will also play in Oakland next season. The Raiders haven't played the Jets at the Meadowlands since 1996.

"When we pull up to that place, the people all know the (Jets) players' names," Edwards said.

The Jets are 1-7-1 in games in Oakland, including the famous 1968 "Heidi" game and three games at Frank Youell Field.