Raiders, Cowboys Trying to Reverse Directions : They Hope Tonight’s Game at Coliseum Isn’t Another Exhibition of Futility

The Raiders and the Dallas Cowboys, a couple of traditional powers down on their preseason luck, will play tonight at the Coliseum in what may be the National Football League’s first must-win exhibition game.

The Raiders are 0-1, the Cowboys 0-2. Neither has scored a touchdown. Unless the worst happens--the dreaded 0-0 tie--someone should come out of this with something.

The Raiders, wiped out by the San Francisco 49ers, 32-0, have a historically lenient attitude toward exhibition results. Former Coach John Madden even used to say privately that he liked getting waffled early because it helped him get his players’ attention.

Madden never had one this bad, though. It was the Raiders’ second-worst exhibition loss. Sure enough, the players were attentive as all get-out last week in Oxnard, where the gloom approximated that following a real loss.

Coach Tom Flores called it “kind of a humbling experience,” and the search for positives took him a little farther afield than usual. “Our kickoff team looked good,” he said, smiling. “We got a lot of practice.”

By the end of the week, though, he was feeling somewhat better about it.

“Looking at the film, it doesn’t look as bad, after you get around the emotion of the day after,” he said.

“Except when you look at the 6 fumbles, the 12 sacks, the missed assignments that led to 2 sacks and 1 fumble. . . . “

And then he got to the silver lining. The real silver lining is that they get to play another exhibition and forget that first one.

This, however, is nothing compared to the Cowboys’ exhibition showing. The Raiders have at least been allowed to do their suffering in a single time zone.

The Cowboys were obliged to arrive in camp two weeks early and then fly halfway around the world to London, a trip that Tom Landry at first resisted, to play straight man to the Chicago Bears. There, the Bears beat them, 17-6.

Then the Cowboys flew back across those 10 time zones and lost, 20-0, to the San Diego Chargers, who turn in a shutout every decade or so. The Cowboys had six first downs, none in their final seven possessions. Mike Saxon punted 12 times and said later it was the first time he’d ever really been tired after a game.

“It probably hurt us some,” Landry said of the trip abroad. “It didn’t seem to hurt the Bears any.

“It really stretches this camp out. We’re going to be here one more week. That’ll be six weeks. That’s too long in camp.”

And the distractions kept on coming. When Herschel Walker hit Thousand Oaks and received his big-bucks deal last week, Tony Dorsett went off, vowing never to play second fiddle.

The Dallas radio talk shows echoed with fans’ denunciations of Dorsett, who met with team President Tex Schramm and emerged looking sheepish.

“I over-reacted,” Dorsett said. “I don’t want to say it’s uncharacteristic because I’ve been known to do it before.”

Walker hasn’t practiced with the Cowboys yet and will be at the game only as a sideline observer.

The Raiders will open the 6 p.m. game with Jim Plunkett, who didn’t play at San Francisco, working the first half at quarterback. That is supposed to be a competitive position in this camp, although there is speculation in several quarters--among players, officials, reporters--that the job was always Marc Wilson’s to lose.

Wilson wasn’t supposed to play at all this week. But he held up well under the adverse circumstances in San Francisco, and Flores decided that he wanted “to keep some of that going.”

Wilson is scheduled to play the third quarter. Rusty Hilger’s tryout, which was supposed to include one half of this game, has been cut to one quarter.

The teams will meet again in the regular season, Nov. 9 at Dallas, when they will renew their ongoing America’s Team-America’s Mavericks rivalry.

This one, though, is only the Highway 101 Bowl, the battle to see who dominates the training camp scene in Ventura County. For the moment, it’s enough for both of them.

Raider Notes Tonight will mark the pro debut of Mike Sherrard, former UCLA wide receiver who was the Cowboys’ No. 1 draft choice. Sherrard ran a scorching 40-yard time in a workout for the Raiders, who loved him. With their 24th pick on the first round, they figured to have no chance at him, and they were right. The New York Giants, who had the 19th pick, were poised to take Sherrard, but the Cowboys, who had the 20th, traded up to 18th on draft day and took him. . . . Is this goodby for Raider rookie/Navy Ensign Napoleon McCallum? His 30 days of leave are over Sunday. Unless the Navy cuts him a deal, this will be his finale for the year. He will return punts tonight, as he did last week. The Raiders, assuming he won’t be available, have put him back behind Kenny King, Vance Mueller and Zeph Lee. McCallum gained 15 yards in two carries from scrimmage against the 49ers.