LOS ANGELES, DEC. 18 -- The Seattle Seahawks beat the Los Angeles Raiders today, 43-37,
earning a playoff spot, the AFC West title and a little respectability
in a division of mediocrity.
With a 9-7 record, the Seahawks won their first divisional title in
the franchise's 12-year history and will play the Cincinnati Bengals in
the conference semifinals.
For the Raiders, who still had a chance to win the AFC West despite a
7-8 record coming into the game, it ended a dismal season plagued by
injuries and the transition of new head coach Mike Shanahan.
"I think the only thing that's worth mentioning is that we won the
AFC West and I don't care if it's a 9-7 record," Seattle quarterback
Dave Krieg said. "It's the first time that it's ever been done in
Seattle and I'm just glad to be a part of it . . . in fact I'm real
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proud to be a part of it."
Steve Largent who caught the first of Krieg's four touchdown passes,
catching a pass in his 167th straight game, said, "It's like your first
kiss. The first time you win the AFC West, it's awful exciting and you
kind of don't know what to do after it, but we're heading over to
Cincinnati and I look forward to that challenge."
Even though the Raiders struggled on both sides of the ball as they
have all season, they refused to give up. They fought back the entire
game and had a chance to win up until the final six seconds. Both teams
decided to live or die with long passing attacks.
"I told my wife that I thought we would win the game and that it
would be by less than 10 points . . . but I didn't think we would rack
up 80 points total score," Largent said.
Seattle Coach Chuck Knox said, "This was a very fine accomplishment
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for our players because we had a lot of ups and downs this year."
Holding the game ball in his hands, the obviously elated coach smiled
and said, "I'm just glad we were able to have a couple more points at
the end . . . We knew that this was going to be a wild game."
It was. Krieg and Raiders quarterback Jay Schroeder combined for 764
yards passing. Krieg ended up 19 for 32 for 410 yards.
Shanahan sat in his quiet locker room and said, "We're disappointed,
but I'm also optimistic about the future of our football team . . . What
we have to do is take a long, hard look at ourselves through the
offseason and determine where we're at and where we're headed."
The teams swapped scores for the first two quarters and the Seahawks
went in the locker room at half leading, 23-17.
"We put the points on the board and I think we showed a lot of
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character," said Schroeder. "We never gave up . . . but we came up
short." Schroeder had 354 yards passing, going 22 of 49 with three
touchdowns and one interception.
In the second half, Krieg took to the air once again, throwing
touchdown passes of 30 yards to wide receiver Brian Blades and a 75-yard
screen to John L. Williams, who also rushed 14 times for 59 yards and
caught seven passes for another 180.
Seattle placekicker Norm Johnson helped the effort with five field
Largent, who may have played in his last regular season game, was
walking around the locker room joking with reporters. "We ran out of
plays by the end of the game. This was an unusual Raider-Seahawk
football game, but one that was good to win."
Willie Gault, who caught two long passes for 108 yards and one
touchdown, agreed with Largent. "Coming in we didn't really expect it to
be a high scoring game. We thought the game would be pretty tight, but
it turned into a big-play type game . . . it turned into a shooting
match and they outshot us today."
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