SHOULD RAIDERS GET KEY TO L.A.? YES: DON'T GO BEGGING NFL FOR TEAM, GO SILVER AND BLACK.

Byline: DOUG KRIKORIAN

They staged another one of those silly NFL owners meetings Wednesday to let everyone across the country know that Los Angeles is no closer to getting an expansion team than it was the last time the NFL owners staged such a meeting.

They have another one of these well-choreographed frolics scheduled for September, and I'm sure the outcome for L.A. will be just as murky unless L.A.'s divine trinity of Eli Broad, Ed Roski and Michael Ovitz substitute all their grandiose rhetoric with millions and millions of their own dollars, which they're obviously not inclined to do.

I don't know why L.A. is so obsessed with securing an expansion franchise that would be a fiscal strain and artistic failure when it might be able to bring back an established team, the Raiders, that badly wants to get out of Oakland.

While many patrons in Southern California blanch at the idea of Al Davis' reappearance and harbor a bitter dislike for the Raiders' owner, the fact is his team wouldn't present the financial strain peculiar to an NFL expansion enterprise.

If the NFL eventually decides to bestow its 32nd team to Houston, a distinct possibility in light of L.A.'s tenuous position at the moment, then Davis' Raiders would be a viable alternative providing, of course, they can break away from the lease they have with Oakland.

Please, cease with the curses, lower the volume, stop with the anti-Al Davis venting.

We can forgive Al Davis for his past sins, for his committing perhaps the most feckless miscalculation in L.A. sporting history in 1994 when he decided to return the Raiders to Oakland after Georgia Frontiere shifted the Rams to St. Louis.

After all, we are a country with a treasured history of forgiving.

Listen, we've forgiven a president who's been telling one whopper after another for almost eight years, climaxing with his celebrated TV disclaimer about having sex with a White House intern half his age.

We've forgiven Marv Albert, exiled from his broadcasting booth a couple of years for bizarre conduct with a female companion, including assault.

I flunked math and unfortunately can't count how many times we've forgiven Mike Tyson for his endless indiscretions.

The same goes for Steve Howe, who was busted for cocaine usage even more than Darryl Strawberry, another guy who benefits from our let-bygones-be-bygones nature.

Alas, baseball's hierarchy refuses to forgive Pete Rose, even though I'd venture to say that 90 percent of the game's fans think it's shameful that Rose isn't in the Hall of Fame.

We certainly have it in our hearts to bury the hatchet with Al Davis, an eccentric fellow who on an implausible whim decided to pull up roots here at a time when his Raiders had the entire L.A. Basin to themselves.

I'm not sure L.A. fans, notoriously fickle and card-carrying front-runners, would warmly embrace an expansion franchise, the thought of which doesn't exactly inspire my passions.

Still, the politicians in this area are determined to bring a new team to the Coliseum, an outdated piece of junk that should have been torn down years ago.

They have used their influence to keep privately owned stadiums from being erected at Dodger Stadium and Hollywood Park, and have forced the NFL to reluctantly accept the Coliseum as the most practical venue to stick a new team.

The sterling governor of California, Mr. Gray Davis, even has got involved in this L.A. football issue, throwing an emissary, Bill Chadwick, into the cauldron.

Chadwick supposedly has done terrific behind-the-scenes work and accelerated the process for L.A.'s football interests.

I say supposedly because the NFL owners still are playing it quite coyly with L.A. for the most logical reason imaginable: money.

The NFL has discovered it can survive quite nicely without L.A. The value of the league's franchises has increased dramatically in recent years, but we here have discovered we also can survive quite nicely without the NFL.

It's a standoff, and I hate seeing our representatives toadying up to the NFL, hands out, hoping the league blesses them with an expansion franchise.

Indeed, the spectacle has become so nauseating that I find myself actually pulling for an Al Davis sequel.

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PHOTO (Color) Raiders owner Al Davis has a reputation for taking the money and running, but he might be cheaper than the alternative.