A RUEFUL DAY FOR OAKLAND.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

SAN DIEGO - Well, after a decades-long search, I guess we've found a California city the Raiders won't yearn to return to anytime soon.

They ducked out of San Diego on Sunday night with most unpleasant memories of this town, which had just become the scene of the franchise's most humiliating chapter, not counting the two decades when they didn't get a sniff of a Super Bowl.

Oakland, Los Angeles, Irwindale, Inglewood - the Raiders have thought of them all as home at one time or another. But San Diego and its people would seem to be safe from Al Davis' affections, whatever happens to the Chargers. America's Finest City, indeed.

``This hurts more than I could ever put into words,'' tackle Lincoln Kennedy said a few minutes after pride, poise and time ran out on the Raiders in their shockingly one-sided 48-21 loss to Tampa Bay in Super Bowl XXXVII at Qualcomm Stadium.

And you have to figure that feeling ran from the bottom of the organization to the top as it watched its recent former head coach Jon Gruden wipe the Gatorade shampoo out of his blond hair on the Buccaneers sideline.

What happened here amid the late-afternoon shards of San Diego sunshine just doesn't happen to the Raiders, who had won their past three Super Bowls by an average of three touchdowns, and it wasn't supposed to happen this season, in the game for which their veteran roster was built.

In a hail of 34 consecutive Tampa Bay points, the mood in the black-and-silver half of the stands switched from Raider Nation to abomination.

It all turned against Al Davis.

The wrong Rice was a star, Tampa Bay's Simeon Rice sacking Rich Gannon twice officially - plus once on a two-point conversion during the Raiders' brief attempt at a rally - while Oakland's Jerry Rice was held without a catch for the first 40 minutes. The usually faultless Gannon threw five interceptions, a Super Bowl record, and the league MVP watched three get run back for touchdowns.

A video replay review went the Raiders' way, giving Jerry Porter a toe-dancing touchdown, so they couldn't even cry league conspiracy.

In the battle of the pirate motifs, the Raiders weren't a patch on the Bucs.

The NFL's No. 1 defense made the NFL's No. 1 offense look bad. Which, the Raiders agreed, it was.

With all the arrogance that hadn't been beaten out of them, they argued afterward that this wasn't so much a case of Tampa Bay playing like the best team in pro football as the Raiders laying an egg in their first Super Bowl since they won it for Los Angeles in 1984.

``We didn't play our `A' game. Actually, we haven't all postseason,'' said Raiders guard Frank Middleton, who had taken some verbal swipes at Simeon Rice during the week. ``If I could have bet on anything before the game, I'd have bet on Gannon having a perfect game. I didn't think anybody could stop us. But the thing is, we dropped a lot of balls. We shot ourselves in the foot. We didn't play Super Bowl ball.''

``They didn't do anything except play the defense they normally do,'' said Gannon, after a half-hearted promise to give credit where it's due. ``We just didn't have our game.''

``That's honestly what I think,'' Kennedy said of the they-didn't-win, we-lost line of thinking. ``When we went out with the first possession and got a turnover, we were looking forward to seven (points) and we had to settle for three. We didn't play very good football after that.''

After the Raiders led 3-0, they let the Bucs drive to a field goal, then saw the Bucs cash in the first of Gannon's interceptions for another field goal. Poor punt coverage led to the Mike Alstott dive that put the Bucs up 13-3 and the rout was on.

Did it hurt worse because the Raiders lost to Gruden, their coach for the four seasons before he left for the Bucs?

``We lost the prize,'' Kennedy said. ``It doesn't matter what's happening on the other side of the field.''

The prize was slipping through Raiders fingers before Super Bowl Sunday even dawned, in characteristic fashion for the franchise that has taken in more bad actors than ``Three's Company.''

The Raiders took the field without Pro Bowl center Barret Robbins, booted by the team - and later to be hospitalized in San Diego - after he went AWOL Friday and Saturday.

Now, the question is what the team is going to do about the rest of the Raiders players who were missing Sunday.

``We didn't show up, early (in the game),'' Middleton said.

Robbins' team rules violation - who knew the Raiders had rules? - can't be used as an excuse. Backup center Adam Treu is a Raiders veteran. There wasn't a bad snap all day.

``There's too many things to be upset about,'' Kennedy said, ``to be upset at one person.''

It was blue skies, 81 degrees and, for the Raiders, an ugly day in San Diego.

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Photo:

(color) Jerry wasn't even the best Rice on the field Sunday. That distinction went to the Bucs' Simeon Rice.

Bryan Patrick/Associated Press

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