OAKLAND, Calif. -- Cornerback Charles Woodson limped along the sidelines wearing a warm stocking cap and a painful grin. Cornerback Tory James took time away from rehabbing his broken leg to watch. Safety Derrick Gibson gutted it out on a bad ankle and refused to come off the field.

For cornerbacks against the Broncos, all the Raiders had were Terrance Shaw and Clarence Love. More safeties played in the nickel than cornerbacks. Do the Raiders need Deion Sanders? Does a starving man need a burger? You bet the Raiders could use another cornerback. If Lester Hayes and Mike Haynes want to come out of retirement, they'd sign them up in a second.

	Woodson

"We need help," Woodson said following the 28-16 AFC West division-clinching victory Sunday over the Broncos. "Everybody in our secondary is banged up. If trying to get Prime Time helps us win a Super Bowl, why would I have a problem with that?"

Sanders said on CBS's pregame show that the Raiders contacted him last week about playing. Talks are in the preliminary stage, but Al Davis would have to get Dan Snyder to pull his Sanders' name off the reserve retired list to make him available. At this point, Sanders' agent, Eugene Parker, said everything is too premature for anything to happen. After all, Parker isn't sure Sanders wants to play.

What is for certain is that Woodson, the Raiders' Pro Bowl cornerback, can't. He didn't start the AFC West showdown Sunday and only came on for about eight or nine plays in nickel situations. Before the game, he took an injection of pain-killers, but that wore off, he said, in about five minutes. The pain was unbearable.

"It was killing me," Woodson said. "I'm going to get more X-rays throughout the week. Anything is possible."

Woodson ruled himself out for the regular-season finale Saturday against the Chiefs. He has a fracture on a non-weight-bearing bone on the right side of his right leg. It's on the low end of the fibula, right above the ankle. James, who had a plate inserted in the leg to allow him to return to the field after missing only two games, is in worse shape. The plate helped the healing, but the injury was a little different.

"His broke all the way," Woodson said.

Can the Raiders go to the Super Bowl with their two starting cornerbacks trying to gut it out on broken legs? That's the question rattling around the Raiders front office. Prime Time might help. To get by Sunday, the Raiders employed an unusual defensive alignment in which Gibson, a safety, played the nickel cornerback position. There were three safeties and two cornerbacks going against three-receiver sets that included Ed McCaffrey, Rod Smith and Ashley Lelie.

Raiders players called it, "Big Nickel."

"What do you call it?" Woodson said. "I call it hurt."

The Raiders' Big Nickel laid a hurting on the Broncos receivers. McCaffrey, Lelie and tight end Shannon Sharpe each suffered jotting hits by Raiders safeties that caused them to be helped off the field. Though each returned, they weren't the same receivers the rest of the game.

"In this game, you have to be physical," Gibson said. "If you are playing physical, receivers have alligator arms. That's the receivers' nature. If they keep getting hit, they are going to look to see you coming."

There were two examples in the final seconds that displayed the punishment inflicted by the safeties. McCaffrey pulled up a little short with his arms on a deep pass over the middle. Sharpe dropped one in the end zone two plays later.

	“	We need help. Everybody in our secondary is banged up. If trying to get Prime Time helps us win a Super Bowl, why would I have a problem with that? ”
		— Raiders CB Charles Woodson, who played sparingly against the Broncos

You might have to go back more than a decade to find a more physical performance by a Raiders' secondary. Hits were clean, but they were powerful. If the Mile High air in Denver affects teams visiting the Broncos, then the Raiders safeties took all the air away from the Broncos on Sunday.

"I've played this game a lot of years and I haven't met very many offensive players who like to get hit hard," Raiders linebacker Bill Romanowski said. "I've said over and over again, that this is a violent sport. Guys that win in the trenches and outhit an opposing team usually win. That's what we did today. We outhit them today. Guys get a little gun shy when the ball is coming over the middle."

Romanowski made his own impact in the second quarter when he sacked Broncos quarterback Brian Griese, who twisted his knee on the play. Griese didn't return and was replaced by Steve Beuerlein. But in some ways, that hit almost backfired on the Raiders.

Griese was awful. He completed seven of 15 passes and threw two interceptions that were converted into touchdowns. Griese left the game trailing 21-0. Beuerlein at least sparked a comeback that narrowed the margin to 21-16 three seconds into the fourth quarter.

But even Beuerlein's leadership couldn't spare his receivers from the pain. The Raiders, minus Woodson and James, stayed mostly in zone, which allowed the safeties to keep the plays in front of them and give them vision for their big hits.

For this one game, the Raiders' philosophy of playing fast safeties worked. Anthony Dorsett is a converted cornerback with 4.3 speed. Gibson runs a 4.4. And Rod Woodson is a future Hall of Fame cornerback who made the transition to safety years ago.

"Last year in New England, they had a Big Nickel, but there wasn't enough versatility," said Shaw, who came from the Patriots to the Raiders during the offseason. "The Patriots had maybe two or three guys who could move to different positions. We've got big guys and we've got fast guys on our team. You're looking at 4.3, 4.3, 4.3, 4.4. Guys are 206 pounds, 203, 200. This secondary is more agile."

And certainly they were more hostile. Gibson, Rod Woodson and Dorsett contributed five of the team's 13 pass defenses. They also leveled more of the hits on Broncos receivers.

"They could have had one cornerback and 12 linebackers, and it wouldn't have made a difference," Sharpe said. "We didn't play very well offensively."

If anything, the Raiders made a physical statement in clinching the AFC West. In the first meeting, Rich Gannon finessed the Broncos by completing 34 of 38 mostly short passes. On Sunday, they got more physical by running the ball 37 times and passing it only 27 times. Often, they would take rookie tackle Langston Walker and line him up at tight end against Broncos defensive end Trevor Pryce. That often gave them six offensive linemen against a strange 3-3-5 package that had only three defensive linemen.

"We knew that there were going to be changes from the first game," Gannon said. "We wanted to be physical. We wanted to run the ball."

So much for finesse. The Raiders didn't deliver the knockout punch that put the Broncos out of the playoffs, but their TKO gave them the first step in their bid to the Super Bowl. For the third consecutive year, they won the AFC West. But they might need help around the corner.

So forgive the Raiders secondary for chanting, "Prime Time, Prime Time." They need another corner. But they have a week or two to get one ready now that they are officially into the playoffs.

John Clayton is a senior writer for ESPN.com.