CHARGERS' PLAN: JUST WIN, BABY.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

OAKLAND - Picture California as the big teeter-totter on the giant NFL playground. Picture Los Angeles as the enormous hinge. Now picture San Diego and Oakland as colossal riders.

They held on for dear life as the apparatus tipped hard Sunday, the San Diego Chargers rising so fast they felt a light-headed euphoria and the Oakland Raiders crashing with an earthshaking thud.

In the 89th game in one of pro football's dearest rivalries, the Chargers held on to win 23-17 in front of 46,905 at Network Associates Coliseum and complete their first two-game season sweep of the Raiders in 12 years, or since the losers were making their home at that other Coliseum down south.

``It's a huge accomplishment,'' linebacker Ben Leber said of the sweep, which gives the Chargers three wins in a row against the Raiders, matching the L.A.-San Diego franchise's longest streak against the Oakland- L.A.-Oakland club.

Here's what's even huger for the Chargers. They won not because they outplayed the Raiders, not from stem to stern the way a 7-3 team taking a long step toward an AFC West title is supposed to outplay a 3-7 team trying to avoid last place. They won because of something more profound.

The Chargers won because, suddenly, they're the team that just wins, baby. While the Raiders are the team that finds a way to blow it.

In the Chargers' locker room afterward, out of the chilly wind that whipped the tailgate parties' skull-and-crossbones flags, running back LaDanian Tomlinson was saying: ``(Last year) we would have found a way to lose. We hadn't learned how to win.''

While at the press-conference dais next to the Raiders' dressing room, safety Ray Buchanan was saying they've reached the point where the rest of the season is ``a learning experience.''

How much has the atmosphere changed in this rivalry the Raiders used to dominate, winning 10 of 13 meetings from 1997 to 2003? After the players-vs.-fans melee at a basketball game in Detroit, the Raiders fans don't even seem like the baddest in the country anymore.

Behind one end zone Sunday, a homemade banner read, ``Don't Punch the Fans.''

Meanwhile, patches of seats went empty, among the least populated sections being one in the upper deck labeled ``Pride & Poise Section.''

The Chargers could have won big if they'd made good on more chances to score. They marched across the 50 in seven of their first nine possessions and got touchdowns on an 11-yard pass from a less-than-sharp Drew Brees to tight end Antonio Gates, a 6-yard run by Brees and a 6-yarder by Tomlinson. But they settled for a Nate Kaeding field goal after Tomlinson was held to 13 yards on five consecutive carries inside the 20. And wild throws by Brees killed a drive, Lorenzo Neal fumbled at the goal line, and Kaeding hooked a kick.

But San Diego made the plays it had to have, the best coming last when Brees stayed upright long enough under three-man pressure to find Keenan McCardell over the middle on third-and-3 for the first down that killed the clock.

``I call him Drew Brees-Slash-Lucky Charm,'' Buchanan said. ``He's having a magical season.''

The Raiders could have won, maybe big, if they were the can-do Oakland team of as recently as their 2002 Super Bowl season. Penalties for holding and pass interference helped the Chargers to their second touchdown and a 13-0 lead. Jerry Porter's fumble after a lay-out hit by Randall Godfrey led to the Chargers' field goal that made it 16-7. A debatable block-in-the-back call against Robert Gallery took a Kerry Collins-to-Doug Gabriel touchdown pass off the board and forced a Sebastian Janikowski field goal that cut it to 23-17.

Then, in the one they'll remember here, with 4:15 left in the game, a Collins pass looped 45 pretty yards in the air only to be dropped by wide receiver Ronald Curry, who was open behind cornerback Sammy Davis a step from the 20. The Raiders ended up punting away their last chance at revenge.

``We can take this (close game) as progress,'' Porter said, ``but we get checks to go out and make plays that didn't get made.''

The Chargers, getting 164 yards on 37 carries from Tomlinson in his best game in eight injury-hampered weeks, didn't play like a Super Bowl threat but did look like a playoff team for the first time since 1995. San Diego's eight wins are three more than it had all last season.

The Raiders, held to 53 yards on the ground, didn't play like the worst team in the NFL - or even the worst in a metropolitan area that features the San Francisco 49ers - but do look like a project for coach Norv Turner for as long as Al Davis gives him. Oakland's seven wins since the 2002 AFC title game are the fewest in the league in that span.

It's one rival rising as fast as the other is falling.