Nothing Seems Special About Their Efforts : Raiders: Their kickers and return units keep putting opponents in good position.

They are called special teams.

Not on the Raiders. Not this season.

With the team tumbling to 0-3 Sunday, there are plenty of places to point fingers. About the only one who escaped unscathed from Sunday’s stunning 28-16 defeat by the Cleveland Browns was quarterback Jay Schroeder. Not playing does have its advantages.

But the not-so-special teams have been particularly ineffective in the Raiders’ sudden descent to the lower reaches of the league.

In each of the three games, the Raiders have outgained the opposition in net yards. The total for the three games shows the Raiders with a huge margin, 1,232 to 763.

“It’s an old cliche, but stats don’t mean a thing,” Raider Coach Art Shell said. “The bottom line is winning.”

The Raider problems began before the season when they left themselves thin in the kickoff-return department. The cutting of Napoleon McCallum and an injury to Ron Brown forced the team to pair Sam Graddy with Dan Land, who was inexperienced as a kickoff returner.

The only other alternative was Tim Brown, who is no alternative at all. He hasn’t gone back there since suffering a season-ending knee injury on a kickoff return in the 1989 season opener.

Asked if there were any circumstances under which Shell might call on Brown to return kicks, the Raider coach replied, “You’ll see him there in the Super Bowl.”

So on a crucial kickoff return at the start of overtime a week ago in Cincinnati, the Raiders used Graddy and Land. The result was disastrous when the pair collided. It was admittedly a freak play, Graddy inadvertently spearing Land, causing the ball to come loose. The Bengals recovered, though, allowing Jim Breech to kick the game-winning field goal.

Perhaps it might have happened even with two experienced returners. These days, the special teams, it seems, can do no right.

On the opening kickoff Sunday, Graddy received the ball in the end zone, elected to run it out and got only as far as his nine-yard line. An illegal block by Andrew Glover on the play moved the ball back to the five.

So Todd Marinovich, in his debut as the starting quarterback, started in the hole.

And never got out.

When Marinovich’s first drive from that poor field position fizzled, punter Jeff Gossett came in and put the Raiders into an even deeper hole.

Gossett, who has been known to salvage miserable snaps from center with a scooping motion that any first baseman would be proud of, let a seemingly perfect snap bounce off his hands, allowing the Browns to get the ball and, subsequently, the early lead.

Kicker Jeff Jaeger has also been shaky. He missed on a 29-yard field-goal attempt Sunday, the kind he usually makes on automatic pilot. That was his third miss of the young season, although the two others were from 59 and 52 yards.

Jaeger missed on only five attempts all of last season when he made a club-record 29 field goals in 34 attempts.

Jaeger also needed a bit of luck on one of the three he did make Sunday, a 43-yarder that appeared to be curving left until it hit one of the uprights and bounced back in.

But Jaeger also hasn’t had a lot of support. Two of his kicks have been blocked, another special teams breakdown.

Jaeger and Gossett, both coming off Pro Bowl seasons, figure to remain solid. But Shell is understandably not in a patient mood these days.

“The special teams have not been playing very well,” he said. “Maybe we don’t have the personnel we need. We’ve always had good personnel, but maybe we don’t have the people now that can get it done for us.”

That might sound ominous, except that the Raiders don’t appear to have a lot of options. They could bring McCallum back. They could scour the waiver wires for additional help.

Or they could shake up the people they have. But at this point, their biggest concern may be replacing one of their most dependable guys in Brown.

He missed the second half of Sunday’s game because of a pulled hamstring. The news Monday was a little more hopeful. Brown had some residual tightness in the leg, but no swelling. He ran a bit at the team’s El Segundo training headquarters and is listed as day to day.

If Brown can’t go next Monday night against the Kansas City Chiefs, the Raiders will use Mervyn Fernandez on punt returns.

“These guys that we have have got to get better at it,” Shell said. “They have to understand the urgency of them making a contribution. If they’re going to be a part of this team, they have to make a contribution on special teams.”