Raiders Play What’s Left of Dolphins

There is a Miami vise clamped around the head of the Dolphins’ Don Shula, coach of the defending American Football Conference champions, who is watching his training season go down the drain.

Star quarterback and semi-franchise Dan Marino is in Pittsburgh, holding out.

Also out of camp while negotiating new contracts, slowly, are free agents Bob Brudzinski, Glenn Blackwood and Jim Jensen.

And missing, too, is fullback Pete Johnson, who has been seen at Miami area race tracks, looking as big as anything running. That would put him over the 250 pounds at which Shula ordered him to report.

Then there are the injured. A.J. Duhe and Andra Franklin couldn’t come back from knee surgery and were cut. Nose guard Bob Baumhower and tackle Eric Laakso are out through mid-October. Pro Bowl offensive guard Ed Newman went down in the first exhibition game. Highly regarded cornerback Don McNeal fell in the second.

With a declining list of candidates, the Raiders requested wide receiver Mark Clayton for a media conference call Wednesday. They were told he might be leaving camp soon, too.

The Dolphins supplied the venerable Nat Moore, instead. Moore, just signed himself, acknowledged that with all the players missing, “You start to lose some morale.”

Then Moore ticked off a list that included not only Franklin and Duhe but also Uwe von Schamann, who was not hurt, nor holding out, nor absent without leave. Von Schamann had been running third in a three-way kick-off with Eddie Garcia and Fuad Reveiz, and Shula cut him without letting him try as much as an extra point in exhibitions.

Said Moore: “I think everybody felt it was a tough decision for Coach Shula to make. But that’s what he’s paid for. We’re players. We just try to go out and execute. Our job is to play football, not make decisions.”

So Saturday night’s Raider opponent will wear Dolphin uniforms and will have Shula on the Coliseum sideline. Aside from that, don’t count on a big recognition factor.

“There’s more turmoil and chaos than I’ve ever been around,” Shula said. “ . . . Marino is the big story here. He just couldn’t get things together with Joe (Robbie, Dolphin owner). . . . Joe has taken the position that he would not negotiate as long as he’s out of camp. Marino has said he’s not coming back to camp without a contract. We’re between a rock and a hard place.”

Isn’t it Shula, himself, who is between a rock and a hard place?

“Yeah,” Shula said. “That’s a good way to put it.”

Shula has had his own battles with Robbie but said this isn’t one of them.

Once Wednesday, he said Robbie was taking a “hard stance.” A moment later, asked if the owner was being hard line, Shula said, “I don’t think it’s hard line.”

Neither does guess who.

“We only have four players who are not in camp and don’t have contracts,” Robbie said from his Miami office. “And three of them are represented by Howard Slusher.

“We’re doing about as well as anybody in the NFL. We’re not much different with Marino than the Rams are with Eric Dickerson not performing according to his contract. As to the Slusher clients, we’re doing about the same that everybody is with Slusher.

“If Marino comes back to camp and gets back in uniform, we will continue to negotiate. We had not foreclosed negotiations. He signed for $2 million for four years when we drafted him. We gave him as much as the quarterbacks drafted ahead of him.

“We’ve been asked to give him a contract bigger than anyone in professional football has ever had. That means more money than anyone has ever been paid. That’s exactly what it means.

“When you have a holdout spectacular quarterback, who just finished having the best year any quarterback ever had, and he’s not in camp, it’s definitely a detriment to both sides. . . . After all, he’s our quarterback. We don’t want the fans angry at him (as one poll in Miami suggested they are). We want him on the field completing passes.

“Profit and loss? That has nothing to do with it. Absolutely not.”

And all those other holdouts?

“We’ve had them, but we signed them all,” Robbie said.

Among the other missing Dolphins when camp opened was Marino’s backup, Don Strock, who was holding out. They started with Bryan Clark No. 1 on the depth chart and started signing free agents.

Clark got hurt. Two of the free agents quit. Someone named Lou Pagley is scheduled to quarterback Saturday’s second half.

Shula, the rock, says he never likes to feel sorry for himself. But if there ever was a time. . . .

“Sometimes you just feel so let down,” he said. “I watched the 49ers the other night on TV. They have everybody in, and it just looked like they’re in complete control of where they’re going. And we’re a long way from that.”

Robbie, another optimist, said he’s still upbeat about the season. Someone has to be. It’s in the rules somewhere.