What Controversy? Wilson Seems to Be No. 1 Quarterback on Raiders

So far, the Raider camp looks like Marc Wilson’s. Of course, the exhibition season won’t open until Sunday in San Francisco. Is this like the man who falls off a building and is heard to say as he passes each floor, “So far, so good”?

There was once speculation that Wilson’s reappointment as No. 1 quarterback was cosmetic, done to minimize public furor, that it was essentially meaningless since the competition would be wide open.

However . . .

A Raider official now says that Wilson has “a sizable lead” over Jim Plunkett and Rusty Hilger.

Raider Coach Tom Flores and his assistants, publicly noncommittal, are thought to have backed Wilson in the off-season meetings with owner Al Davis. Wilson may have completed 49% of his passes last season with 21 interceptions, but the coaches’ argument is said to go like this:

Marc has been here and knows what we’re doing. In the absence of anyone else who can grab the job and run with it, he’s the choice.

Flores insists that the competition continues, but some of his players are skeptical.

Plunkett, himself, said he had been told it would be competitive, to which he added: “Whatever that means.” For him, it’s a “believe-it-when-you-see-it kind of situation.”

Some of his teammates are privately laughing at the idea that there is competition.

Is it only because this--an officially sanctioned quarterback controversy--is so unusual for this organization that the players can’t believe it? Or are they the ones who really know what’s going on?

That leaves one actor in this drama unaccounted for: Davis.

He is said to have been, in delicate terms, very disappointed at the playoff upset by the New England Patriots in which Wilson completed 11 of 27 passes and threw 3 interceptions.

Davis was ready to trade Wilson to the Philadelphia Eagles for two No. 2 picks and to pay the first $700,000 of Wilson’s salary. The Raiders were interested, right up to the point in the draft when Hawaii receiver Walter Murray disappeared from the board, taken by the Washington Redskins, just before the Eagles’ second pick.

Davis is then thought to have deferred to his coaches’ wishes to bring Wilson back as No. 1.

But was Davis still signaling his displeasure in June? At a convention of sports editors in Phoenix, he said of Wilson: “We lost last year, and he did not play well. I blame the organization and myself.

“He had great talent when he came to us. Quite frankly, I didn’t know him enough to know he couldn’t handle the pressure, the pressure of public apathy and the pressure of the newspapers he had to read every day.

“I’m not so sure yet that Wilson can’t play, though maybe not for the Raiders.”

How much rope Wilson has remains to be seen. Time may be on your side in figuring out Raider personnel changes. The problem is, it’s the only ally.

The Raiders are as revealing as tea leaves. They’re mum about promotions and demotions, signaling them only subtly.

Last season, for example, center was listed as competitive. Dave Dalby, the longtime incumbent, was allowed to start the season but was shortly taken from the lineup, suffering from turf toe, the announcement said.

He was replaced by Don Mosebar, who was every bit as good at the new position as the Raiders had hoped he’d be. Mosebar is expected to center for the next 10 years, no matter what shape his toes are in.

Competition at quarterback would be something else. The Raiders have a traditional loathing of quarterback controversies. Consequently, they’ve been very leery since moving to Los Angeles, where such debate was born and raised to an art form.

There are other possible defenses of Wilson. He played hurt, with a separated left shoulder that needed postseason surgery. His line needed half a season to come together. His wide receivers were first-year starters and, in the case of rookie Jessie Hester, drop-prone.

Wilson’s ability had long been a source of conjecture among the Raiders, but if you look at his record, there were no other 49% seasons before last year’s.

One of Wilson’s problems is that he has suffered significant injuries in the last three seasons. Mentally tough or not, he needs to be luckier.

There is another question: Can the Raider deep-strike game, which calls for the quarterback to hold the ball longer, keep anyone healthy in this decade of the blitz?

Or can this line block as well as it has to? Plunkett has also suffered significant injuries in the last two years.

In any case, all Wilson knows is what he’d been told, that’s it’s competitive.

Whatever that means.

“In the past, they always said it’d be a competitive camp, and it hasn’t been,” Wilson says, smiling. “They always told me that. Maybe that’s what they tell the backup, so he thinks he’s got a prayer.

“They’ve got to feel they were justified. When you’re winning Super Bowls, you’re not going to come back the following year and change quarterbacks.

“I don’t feel like I’ve done any better or any worse in this camp than I have in the past. I feel like I’m having a good camp, but there are still some things we need to be better at. I don’t feel like we’ve arrived, or like I’ve arrived.

“I honestly don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve felt like the No. 1 for a while. I don’t feel like I have to show anybody anything. I just want to play the way I can play.”