No Way to Disguise It; It was a Bad Day for Raiders’ Wilson

You think you had a bad Sunday?

You ran the power mower over the morning paper? Sharks ate your surfboard? Family of Gypsies moved into your back yard and barbecued your dog?

No matter how badly things went for you, pal, you probably had more fun Sunday than Marc Wilson.

Here’s a partial box score for Wilson, the Raiders’ backup quarterback, in Sunday’s game against the Washington Redskins:

--Entered the game in the third quarter, and fumbled on the first series. This after a costly fumble the previous week.

--On the second series, was brutally rear-ended by Redskin end Dexter Manley, who rammed his helmet between Wilson’s shoulder blades and sent Wilson to the canvas for a mandatory eight-count.

--Fluttered a long pass, which was almost intercepted.

--Hit Dokie Williams with a 49-yard touchdown bomb, which was called back because a Raider player lined up too far off the line of scrimmage.

--Was starting to engineer a nice little game-winning drive in the closing minutes, when a Raider receiver fumbled the ball over to the Redskins.

--Watched first-stringer Jim Plunkett play a very nifty first half.

--Worst of all, got booed repeatedly by some Coliseum fans just for showing up, and later for failing to provide miracles.

Booed? If there’s one thing the second-string quarterback of any L.A. football team could always count on, it was that he would be cheered.

Fortunately for Wilson, the Raider fans either aren’t in mid-season voice, or have become timid due to the Coliseum’s new restrictions on beer sales. Sorry, fans, your message didn’t get through.

“I didn’t seem to notice,” Wilson said, when asked about the booing. “I guess I blocked it out today.”

OK, we believe you, Marc, but now that we’ve told you the fans were booing, how do you feel?

“They want us to win, too,” Wilson said with a shrug. “When things don’t go right, we’re just as frustrated as they are. I imagine it (the booing) is from last year, when we were trying to repeat (as Super Bowl champs) and fell short. People are frustrated.”

See what a nice guy Wilson is? If thousands of people came to where you worked and booed you, would you be so forgiving?

Especially if you worked all last season with a bum thumb on your passing hand. Wilson sprained his thumb early in the season, but played anyway because Plunkett was injured. How bad was the thumb?

“Even in the off-season, I couldn’t unscrew lids from jars,” Wilson said.

Of course, when you make $800,000 a year, you can hire someone to unscrew jar lids for you. But money won’t buy you a starting job, and when Wilson arrived at camp, his thumb feeling better, he read all about how Plunkett was the No. 1 guy.

“I’m not conceding,” Wilson said. “Frankly, when I’m playing, I’m not out there every play thinking about that, about where I’m standing in relation to Jim.”

Where Wilson is standing in relation to Plunkett is that Wilson is sitting. At age 37, Plunkett refuses to fade away. And Wilson, going into his sixth season trying to grab the starting job for good, finds the coaching staff trying to pump up Plunkett with votes of semi-confidence.

“In some respects I think I’m competing for the top spot,” Wilson said. “They (the coaches) already mentioned giving it to Jim, but at the end of every game, they evaluate us both.”

Wilson earned points Sunday for durability, surviving the Manley attack.

“It was a bulls-eye but it wasn’t good enough to keep this (BYU) Cougar down,” Wilson said. “I think it ranks right up there with hits I’ve taken from Mark Gastineau and Fred Dean, though. I was a little dazed for a while. Everything goes quiet for a minute.”

But if you’re fighting for a starting job, you shake it off and stagger back to the huddle. You wonder if it will effect your ability to unscrew jar lids.

And the fans and critics, meanwhile, wonder about Wilson. After five seasons, he is still a mystery, a question mark. He has lost two seasons to injuries, and has given mixed messages when he played healthy. He has the arm and the height and the college superstar background to become a passing whiz in this league, but he remains unproven.

In five years with the Raiders, Wilson has not thrown a pass in post-season play. In some ways, it’s like he is still a rookie.

Maybe that’s why he showed up at training camp with a mustache. Maybe he wanted to change his image, get away from the nice kid, clean-cut look.

It didn’t work. Wilson now looks like a nice, clean-cut kid with a mustache. Maybe he should try an eye patch or a peg leg.

One thing is sure: Even with the mustache, the fans still recognized Marc Wilson, and so did Dexter Manley.

Now he’s waiting for the coaches to recognize him.