North County Times from Oceanside, California • 19

Browns 27, Bears 14 Chiefs 23, Jets 7 Saints 24 Dolphins 13 Falcons 34, Patriots 0 Redskins 41, Cardinals 3 Steelers 21 Bengais 9 Packers 19 bjccaneers14 Colts 16, Bills 13 Vikings 31, Rams 17 49ers 20 Eagles 14 BladeCitizen Monday, November 30, 1992 Chargers show all theyre Prime Time San Diego outclasses rival Raiders, 27-3 By Jay Paris Staff Writer SAN DIEGO Theyve won in snow, in daylight, under an inflated roof and now at night. Hey Deion Sanders, mind if the Chargers borrow a nickname? They answer to Prime Time after Sunday evenings 27-3 victory over the Raiders. San Diegos coming out party before the a national television audience and a capacity crowd of 59,894 was a hit. It impressively rolled to its seventh triumph in its last eight games. The Chargers (7-5) sent the Raiders (5-7) playoff hopes nose-diving while improving their own.

San Diego is a game behind AFC Western Division leader Kansas City (8-4). Denver (74) takes on Seattle (1-10) tonight. In the AFC wildcard race, Miami (84) and Houston (7-5) are within sight. Sunday, against the dreaded Raiders, the Chargers played their top game of the season. They dominated offensively, defensively and on special teams And all before millions of NFL fans who discovered what San Diego followers have known since Oct 4.

The uniform's name is the same, but this team is different it wins. That is probably the best we played as a unit this year, veteran linebacker Gary Plummer said So well, that tight-lipped team owner Alex Spanos was spotted grinning on the stadium's television "He deserves to smile." Plummer said "He is going to smile a lot more when we make the playoffs The Chargers aren't quite there yet But they took a giant step tow ard erasing their disappointing past by demolishing the Raiders San Diego hasn't been involved in postseason play since 1982 And it's trying to become the leagues first team to start 04 and gain a playoff berth "There is still that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow we can reach." comerback Gill Byrd said "There are certain things that still have to happen But it's exciting that are still in it "We are a team to be reckoned with I don't think we can sneak up on anybody I don't think anybody will take us lightly" Linebacker Junior Seau said the Chargers have to guard against just that with their remaining opponents Phoenix. Cincinnati, A and Seattle They are a combined 13-34 "We've been on that other side of the coin last year." he said "And when we came into those games with a winning team, like New Orleans, like Miami. I mean, we were thinking we could beat those guys And those are the guys you have to watch The Chargers jumped to a 21 3 halftime lead, converting two LA turnovers into 14 points LA behind the running of Eric Dickerson, who had a game-high 103 yards on 17 rushes, was in posi tion to score first on a 38-yard Jeff Jaeger field goal See Chargers. Page C-3 Marion Butts fumbles as he is hit by Winston Moss.

Anthony Miller (83) fell on the ball for a touchdown. Father Time gets a second chance Meaningful NFL games have come back to San Diego SAN DIEGO They call him ather Time, and that noise you hear in the background isnt just a clock ticking. It is his defense clicking. Once again. Bill Amsparger has one of the NFLs top-rated defensive units, hich wouldnt be such a big surprise if he hadnt been out of pro football for eight long years.

How does it feel to be reborn? someone asked the 65-year-old defensive coordinator not long ago "I didn't know I'd died," Amsparger replied. On a crisp November night in Jack Murphy Stadium, Amsparger and the Chargers proved they were very much alive, stuffing the Raiders, 27-3, for their seventh victory in the past eight games. They did it with Ronnie Harmon, the league's finest spot player, and Stan Humphries, maybe the AFCs fastest rising quarterback. They did it with brisk blocking and opportunistic special teams. But mostly, they did it with defense.

Amsparger, the architect of the famous Miami unit that helped Don Shula's team to a perfect 17-0 record in 1972, seems to be creating again. He has gone from the Dolphin NoNames to the Chargers New Names. From Nick Buoniconti, Manny Fernandez and Jake Scott to Junior Seau, Blaise Winter and Stanley Richard. He's a professor and we re just students running around out there all the time, said Seau, the Pro Bowl linebacker who is probably the best of all the San Diego defenders. I remember the first time I saw him.

I thought he was somebodys father or grandfather. But I respect my elders, so I went over and introduced myself. He said, Hi, Im Bill Amsparger. Now are you ready to sit down and go over some coverages? Gary Plummer, another inside linebacker, took a more direct approach upon meeting his new boss. "I asked if hes started collecting social security yet, Plummer said, smiling.

He said he was eligible but he saw no reason to start. I guess hes just out here doing his part for the national debt. Not to mention his contribution in reversing the longtime football recession theyve been suffering through San Diego. It has been 10 years since this team last appeared in the playoffs. It won't be 10 more before it makes it again.

Given the soft, cushy, final month of a schedule these guys have inherited (at Phoenix. Cincinnati, at the Raiders again and at Seattle), they could very well mus- See Bisheff, Page C-2 SAN DIEGO Two months ago. the Chargers struggled to find suitable guests for their local television highlight show Now they're ready for prime time, a team worthy of being slashed across screens in living rooms everywhere. The Chargers are a team the nation has forgotten in recent years, a team that has turned to static They have been absent from Monday Night Football almost as long as Howard Cosell, and for good reason Not even their own fans have wanted to see them perform. But all that is changing The Charges are coming back into focus.

They remain the hottest team in football, winners of seven of their last eight after Sunday night's 27-3 lashing of the hated Los Angeles Raiders before a sellout home crowd and ESPN's cameras. Cable television may be as close as the Chargers (7-5) can get these days to a national audience, but if they keep this up it figures that Monday Night Football will come calling next year for the first time since 1985 Heck, the electrifying Ronnie Harmon and Junior Seau can put on a pretty entertaining show by themselves Just ask the Raiders Ask anybody So while ABC sulks about tonight's Elway-less Denver at pitiful Seattle match, the Chargers today are celebrating their new-found success by enjoying an extra day off threat that could have won the game for Philadelphia Hanks came up perhaps a millimeter short on the measurement or made it if you believe Rich Kotite and his assistants A picture is worth 1.000 words." Kotite said after his team nearly rallied from a 20-7 fourth quarter deficit They kept replaying it on television and John Mad den said it was a first down. All I know is what my coaches upstairs say, and they said the ball was clearly on the line Unfortunately we cant bring it back Said San Francisco safety Dana Hall. We were just fortunate. They say its a game of inches It was a millimeter today But none of that could obscure Rices accomplishment, tying in his eighth season the mark for touchdown catches that took Steve Largent 14 years to accomplish.

It as a 22-yard pass from Steve Young on San Francisco's second possession and a classic Rice See 49ers, Page C-6 Rice equals receiving TD mark in win over Eagles GARY HYVONEN Then again, if you saw Phoenix, next eeks opponent, belly-flop by 41-3 to Washington on Sunday, you can understand if coach Bobby Ross decides to give his team the whole week off Their dominance of the Raiders was the Chargers' most significant victory of the year, by virtue of who it was against, how it was accomplished and what was at stake. This was a battle of plavoff-hope survival between two bitter rivals under the lights "The Raiders are used to these kinds of games and we're not." said Chargers general manager Bobby Beathard. "so this is a very big win for us. We realize if had lost this game, we'd need a lot of things to happen with a lot of teams for us to make the playoffs Much has been made about the Chargers' watered-down, fifth- See Hyvonen. Page C-2 The 49ers Jerry Rice celebrate his 100th carrer touchdown catch.

Stewart skins foes for second straight year By Jaime Diaz New York Times PALM DESERT Payne Stewart put $220,000 worth of salve on an otherwise poor year Sunday by winning his second consecutive Skins Game in sudden death. In a format where opportunism is everything, Stewart holed a 3-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole, worth $120,000, to edge Fred Couples, who had already won $210,000. On that hole, the 171-yard, par-3 17th at the Bighorn Golf Club, all four players hit excellent tee shots, with Tom Kite the farthest away from the pin at 8 feet and Stewart the closest at 3 feet I thought at least three of us were going to the next hole, said Stewart Those were preposterous odds for all three of those guys missing. You couldnt have gotten them in Las Vegas. But Kite, who was shut out in the two-day event missed his putt to the right and Greg Norman, who won $110,000, also pushed his 5-footer.

Couples, who had birdied the 17th hole in regulation play after hitting a 6-iron to a foot stepped up to his putt along the same line as the previous play- See Skins, Page C-6 By Dave Goldberg The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO Jerry Rice tied an NFL record with the 100th touchdown catch of his career. But the San Francisco 49ers are the first team the NFL playoffs largely because of the first catch of the season by the nearly forgotten Dexter Carter and two pivotal defensive plays by Tim Harris and Merton Hanks that stopped the Eagles about a millimeter short in the final minute. The Niners, sluggish for 24 quarters following the catch that gave Rice a tie w-ith Steve Largent for the career record, beat the Philadelphia Eagles 20-14 Sunday to improve to 10-2 and clinch at least a wild-card berth, their ninth playoff trip in 10 years. It also gave them their 10th straight 10-victory season and kept them a game plus a tiebreaker ahead of New Orleans in the NFC West. But not by much.

Hanks tackle on Calvin Williams at San Francisco's 1 1 with 36 seconds left ended a 4.