49ers Stuff the Raiders Into Sack in Exhibition of How-Not-To, 32-0

Be careful what you wish for, young quarterback, you just might get it.

Rusty Hilger, who wished for the chance to see if he could bounce back from adversity, got a lifetime’s worth of adversity at Candlestick Park Sunday from the San Francisco 49ers, who trampled the Raiders, 32-0, their worst exhibition loss in 19 years.

Even Raider Coach Tom Flores, who is used to the grisly, coming off three straight 1-3 exhibition seasons, could find little nice to say, and lots of the other things.

“I don’t care if this is a preseason game,” Flores said. “We just can’t have that. . . . I just wasn’t satisfied at all. I’m not happy at all.”

From the placid Flores in exhibition season, this is the equivalent of cutting 20 players on the spot. A year ago, the heat didn’t start to come down until the exhibition finale, by which time the Raiders were 0-3. This year, it may start warming up in Oxnard a little ahead of that schedule.

The Raiders are off today, but. . . .

“Looks like a tough Tuesday,” said Howie Long.

How bad were the Raiders?

It was their worst exhibition defeat since 1967, when Hank Stram’s Kansas City Chiefs waffled them, 48-0, in Portland, Ore.

They fumbled six times and lost five.

Their pass protection was mythical. The 49ers seemed to be more interested in finding out if Hilger could bounce, rather than if he could bounce back. They tossed him off the turf eight times. They got Marc Wilson four times in the first half for a total of 12 sacks.

Ominously, Jesse Hester dropped the first two passes thrown to him, on the Raiders’ second and third plays from scrimmage.

As a rookie No. 1 draft choice, Hester dropped passes all over the first half of the season, but rallied. This summer, the Raider staff had remarked often on how much better Hester looked and how much more relaxed.

The second Raider play Sunday was Wilson’s pass to Hester on a 10-yard out pattern. Hester dropped it.

On the very next play, Hester burst up the middle, beat 49er cornerback Derrick Martin . . . and with nothing but turf ahead of him, dropped Wilson’s toss.

CBS zoomed in on the veteran Cliff Branch, standing on the sideline wearing a Raider baseball cap, but Branch probably isn’t going to be able to ride to anyone’s rescue. He is thought to be all but officially retired.

All the Raiders have behind Hester is more youth, Rod Barksdale, the Arizona State sprinter, who never even played high school football. He also dropped a pass Sunday.

There were sundry other miscues. Like Chris Bahr’s pulled 21-yard attempt for a field goal, and Jeff Barnes jumping offsides on a punt, giving the 49ers a first down, but why go on? Space is money and you get the idea.

The Raider quarterback derby?

Wilson played OK, which was a high grade, indeed, for anyone on his unit Sunday. He completed 13 of his 22 passes, and all three drops were of his passes. The four sacks he took didn’t seem to result from indecisiveness. On the first two, 49er defenders came in clean, as they say, untouched by Raider hands.

Flores wouldn’t say much about his quarterbacks, but did allow Wilson “did a pretty good job.”

Hilger played like a young quarterback in a maelstrom: Not great.

He was sacked once on his first series.

He was sacked on his second, this one a blast from the blindside by linebacker Ron Ferrari, producing a fumble the 49ers recovered at the Raider three.

“That was a total error by just about everybody,” Hilger said. “I didn’t see it coming, and that makes it kind of hard to hold on to the ball.

“I had called a line slide one way and then changed it on the way to the line of scrimmage. Obviously, we didn’t have it all together.”

Obviously, they didn’t get it back together any time Sunday. The next time the Raiders got the ball, Hilger was sacked on back-to-back plays.

“It just became a situation where I was trying to figure out who was being blocked and who was coming clean,” Hilger said. “It made it a little tough to read downfield.”

The real Raider final score?

1. Wilson probably did nothing to lose the edge that Flores had said he enjoys.

2. Hilger did nothing to move up.

Someone reminded Hilger late Sunday afternoon that he’d wished for some adversity.

“Wasn’t that wonderful?” he said, beaming.

Raider Notes

Managing to distinguish himself in the carnage was Raider rookie running back Vance Mueller from Occidental College. He averaged 5.3 yards on seven carries and caught two passes for 19 yards. . . . Much-needed comic relief was provided by Matt Millen, who hit rookie 49er punt returner John Taylor just as (after?) he went out of bounds. This put Millen in the middle of the 49er bench, and 49ers started to converge on him, threateningly. Millen just held up his hands and shrugged. Coach Bill Walsh came over and Millen was allowed to leave. . . . Millen also grabbed the face-mask of linebacker Jerry Keeble in another fracas. Millen: “The guy clipped me. And you know what? (Referee) Jim Tunney said, ‘I didn’t see the play, but I saw the way you went down and you had every reason to be angry. That’s why I let you hit him.’ ” . . . Rusty Hilger will get one more exhibition season look, in next Saturday’s second half against the Dallas Cowboys. Jim Plunkett will start, and Marc Wilson won’t play. . . . Wilson: “I’d hesitate to say I played well. When you lose 30-whatever-it-was to nothing, how can you say you played well?”