Oakland, Calif. ? In past years, the Oakland Raiders sometimes have tried to downplay the significance of their long losing streak against the AFC West rival San Diego Chargers.

This year, they’re facing the 13-game skid head on.

Coach Tom Cable addressed the losing streak at a team meeting and placed signs around the locker room with an inflammatory — and embellished — quote from former Chargers coach and noted Raiders hater Marty Schottenheimer to fire up his team.

“I’ve been around long enough to say I’m sick of it,” Cable said. “I’m one of those that knows the importance of the game, knows the importance of the divisional game. We were close twice last year but close doesn’t work.”

The Raiders (1-3) head into today’s meeting with the Chargers (2-2) having not beaten San Diego since a 34-31 overtime victory Sept. 28, 2003. The skid, which began Dec. 28, 2003, is the second longest active one in the NFL, trailing only Buffalo’s 14-game losing streak to New England that started one day earlier.

Only four members of the Raiders have been on the roster for the entirety of the 13-game losing streak: cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, punter Shane Lechler, kicker Sebastian Janikowski and linebacker Sam Williams.

For that quartet, the losing streak stings even harder than it does for players who were on other teams or even in high school when this all started seven years ago.

“I’m well aware of it,” the normally mild-mannered Williams said. “A lot of guys here are well aware of it. We don’t like it. We don’t like the Chargers at all. We don’t like anything about them. We don’t like them, so we’re going to end this streak. That’s our goal.”

The Raiders have been thoroughly dominated of late in the series, getting outscored 363-175, losing eight games by double figures and often getting blown out.

The gap seemed to narrow a bit last year when the Raiders actually led the Chargers in the final minute in the first meeting last year before Darren Sproles scored the game-winning touchdown with 18 seconds left in a 24-20 victory. In the second meeting, Oakland had the ball late with a chance to tie the game before losing, 24-16.

“Every year, every team, every game is always so different that as a player on this side of it, where you have had so much success, you still don’t go into a game with that feeling of, ‘Hey, we’ve dominated this team,”‘ defensive lineman Luis Castillo said. “It’s a division game. More than anything, I think the one thing we can say out of all the wins we’ve had against them is, they’re never easy. Some of them, the scores have been a little lopsided, but it’s always a physical game.”

Oakland’s late game struggles last year played into Schottenheimer’s comments on the Raiders on Sirius NFL Radio this week. Schottenheimer said he always told his players that if they stayed in the game long enough, the Raiders would find a way to lose it.

The quote posted in the Oakland locker room was much more inflammatory than what Schottenheimer actually said, accusing the Raiders of folding and saying that that was still the perception around the league.

None of that will matter today, when the teams take the field.

“I’ve got enough motivation,” Lechler said. “I really don’t need to see what anybody else said. I haven’t even seen (the quote).”

The big difference this year when the teams meet will be the absence of LaDainian Tomlinson from the Chargers lineup. Tomlinson, who signed with the New York Jets in the offseason, was the biggest individual reason for San Diego’s success against Oakland.

He ran for 1,506 yards during the 13-game streak, scoring 20 touchdowns and throwing two more. That’s two more touchdowns than the entire Raiders team managed in that span.

In Tomlinson’s place will be rookie Ryan Mathews, third-year back Mike Tolbert and Sproles.

“We’ve faced Sproles and we’ve faced that team as whole and LT wasn’t the only guy that was hurting us,” Asomugha said. “It’s the same stuff. It’s the same offense, you just have to beat them. They are so dangerous that they don’t have to change up.”

The Raiders will also have a new starting quarterback for this meeting, with Bruce Gradkowski getting his first start for Oakland against San Diego. Gradkowski played briefly in the first game last year when JaMarcus Russell left with an injury but has little experience in this rivalry.

He will be the sixth quarterback to start for Oakland during the streak, following the likes of Rick Mirer (0-1), Kerry Collins (0-4), Aaron Brooks (0-2), Daunte Culpepper (0-1) and Russell (0-5).