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BUFFALO, New York (Ticker) -- The Oakland Raiders won the battle of the league's top two rushing defenses and intercepted Doug Flutie three times in a 20-14 victory over the Buffalo Bills. Tyrone Wheatley rushed for 97 yards for the Raiders, who controlled most of the game against the NFL's top run defense. They held the ball for nearly 40 minutes and collected 195 yards, 133 more than Buffalo had allowed per game. "So much for stats," Bills coach Wade Phillips said. "We obviously weren't the No. 1 run defense in the league. I thought we played very poorly on defense overall. We let them control the game." "We have a job to do and we can't look at somebody writing up numbers," Wheatley said. "Stats are skewed. It's just on paper. We knew we could run the ball." Raiders coach Jon Gruden credited his offensive line, which included rookie Barry Sims. "They got a game ball," Gruden said. "What Barry Sims did today, coming in his first start against a Hall-of-Fame player (Bruce Smith), he played hard." Wheatley ran for a pair of scores, helping Oakland to a 7-0 lead with a three-yard touchdown and a 20-7 advantage on a 11-yard rumble in the third quarter. "We felt that the teams they played against really didn't have the running attack that we did," Raiders receiver Tim Brown said. Flutie had gone 10 quarters without throwing an interception until the first play from scrimmage. In the final seconds, he drove the Bills inside Oakland territory but was intercepted by safety Eric Turner on the game's last play. "I am frustrated and disappointed that we lost the football game," Flutie said. "I am not going to point the finger or second guess anyone." Napolean Kaufman had 72 yards on 12 carries as the Raiders (3-3) rebounded from a disappointing home loss to Denver. They return to Oakland for a month, hosting the New York Jets, Miami and San Diego with a bye week in between. Each of the Raiders' first six games have been decided by seven points or fewer. "We've learned we are not going to blow anybody out," said Oakland quarterback Rich Gannon, who was 15-of-22 for 155 yards. "We are going to be in every football game, and every game is going to come down to the wire. We just need to learn how to finish them at the end." Flutie completed 19-of-41 passes for 210 yards for the Bills (4-2), who had a four-game winning streak snapped on owner Ralph Wilson's 81st birthday. They play their next three games on the road, visiting Seattle, Baltimore and Washington. "Today was a tough loss for us because we all know that we are better team than the way we played out there," Bills receiver Eric Moulds said. "Hopefully, we will bounce back next week." Moulds will miss up to four weeks after pulling his left hamstring in the fourth quarter. Cornerback Darrien Gordon picked off Flutie in the opening seconds and returned the ball seven yards to Buffalo's 31-yard line. Six plays later, Wheatley scored from three yards. The Bills responded as Antowain Smith ran for a 52-yard TD to tie the game. But Smith added only five more yards and Buffalo finished with just 109 on the ground. The Raiders were yielding an average of 63 rushing yards per game. "Outside of the long run by (Smith), I thought for the most part we stayed in our gaps, got off blocks, and tackled pretty good," Gruden said. Oakland kept the ball on the ground on its first possession, then ran five more times on a 12-play drive that resulted in a 25-yard field goal by Michael Husted and a 10-7 lead. Gannon set up the score with a 25-yard pass to Brown, who went over the 10,000-yard mark for his career with three catches for 47 yards in the game. Wheatley totaled 25 yards on the Raiders' next possession. Husted kicked a 32-yard field goal 4:46 into the second quarter for a 13-7 advantage. "We didn't have the ball. We never had the ball," Phillips said. "They kept making first downs, kept running the ball. We put eight men up there and we still didn't stop them running the ball." A bust with the New York Giants, Wheatley had 25 carries and fell just shy of his third straight 100-yard game. He capped a nine-play, 72-yard march to open the second half with an 11-yard score, his fifth of the season. "We got a few guys that are taking advantage of a new lease," Gruden said. "They are on a new team, new coaching staff, new offense, new set of circumstances. He is playing with great confidence." Flutie was just 8-of-19 for 88 yards in the first half and led Buffalo to only five first downs as the Raiders took a 13-7 lead into the locker room. "It felt just like a hair out of sink," Flutie said of his game. "Nothing came easy today. Even the plays we did make, we struggled." The Bills' sparkplug, Flutie fell to 14-2 at home as an NFL starter with an 8-2 mark as a Bill. He is 20-10 in the league as a starter. Trailing 20-7 in the third quarter, Flutie nearly hooked up with Moulds for a 42-yard score. But Moulds had the ball go through his hands at Oakland's 8. Moulds capped the scoring with a 12-yard TD catch 90 seconds into the fourth quarter but left before the final drive. He had three receptions for 54 yards. With no timeouts left and 59 seconds to play, the Bills started at their own 23. Connections with rookie Peerless Price and Andre Reed got Buffalo to Oakland's 29, but Flutie overthrew well-covered receivers on consecutive plays before being intercepted by Turner at the 1. "It seems like we have been in this position almost every week," Gruden said. "It was nothing new to us. We were defending a touchdown, not a field goal, in this situation. We did what we had to do to win a football game." The Raiders chewed up more than 6 1/2 minutes on their final drive before Husted missed a 32-yard field goal. They extended the drive on third down three times, receiving a pass interference call on safety Henry Jones at their own 33. "Their last drive was really the key," Phillips said. "The third-down interference call really made it. I thought we had all the momentum going."
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