Raiders’ Wilson Watches and Waits : Embattled Quarterback’s Future Remains Uncertain

There are young, bouncy quarterbacks with their careers ahead of them, old war-horses trying a last comeback and in-betweeners, and they all have some reason to be glad they’re in camp.

And then there’s Marc Wilson.

He’s been here before and can only dream that there’ll come a day when he’ll be somewhere else. Meanwhile, he has to report back to the team that has demoted him, the press that has criticized him and the fans that have booed him.

Fun?

“It’s not a walk in the park,” Wilson said Monday.

In recent local sports history, only the Clippers’ Benoit Benjamin has had to endure vilification like Marc Wilson, and Benjamin was saved by minuscule attendance. All Benoit had to put up with was the occasional jibe. Wilson was booed by filled stadiums and derided on all the major networks.

How did it happen to a nice young man like Marc Wilson? Maybe it was him, maybe it was the Raiders around him, maybe it was a combination.

When he got his shot, the Raiders had an aging offensive line they were trying not to think about, infant wide receivers they had high hopes for, and a macho tradition that would make it difficult for any nice, young quarterback who couldn’t post results in a hurry.

How close did he come? The mind returns to last season, which Wilson began as the embattled No. 1. He played a fine game in the opener at Denver. In the next one at Washington--which the Raiders would lose, 10-6--he beat a blitz on the first series and hit wide open Rod Barksdale downfield for what was going to be an easy touchdown, except that Barksdale dropped the ball. Wilson wound up getting sacked five times and having his ribs and shoulder X-rayed.

What happens if his receivers don’t drop as many, and his blockers don’t miss as many? We’ll never know. That was his chance, and things didn’t work out for him. Now people don’t believe in him. Now it’s Rusty Hilger’s turn.

Now, six months later, Wilson sits on a bench on the Raider weight-lifting patio and tries to be cooperative but diplomatic.

“From a personal standpoint, I think at times I played extremely well,” he says. “There were other times I struggled. We won five games when I started. We lost three games when I started. It’s disappointing to me that I didn’t finish the season, that I was replaced. Sometimes I don’t fully understand those decisions. But I don’t have any control over those things.”

He was pulled at Dallas after throwing three interceptions in one half, following the four he had thrown the week before against the Broncos. The Raiders were trailing the Cowboys, 10-3, but Jim Plunkett pulled the game out.

What happened when Wilson began struggling? Did he lose all confidence as Raider insiders believe?

“No, I didn’t,” Wilson says. “I hurt my thumb again. That’s something I struggled with periodically.”

A thumb that doesn’t hurt when you grip a football may be very handy to a quarterback, but if you’re looking for an injury your Raider teammates can sympathize with, you’d be better off to say you fell off your motorbike while trying to jump a fence at 120 m.p.h. Of such perceptual gaps are promising young athletes turned into fodder for angry hordes of fans.

How would you like to be reviled in your own land? Take Marc Wilson’s word for it, you wouldn’t.

“How do I deal with it?” he asks. “It’s tough sometimes. I go home and I have a wife and three kids and I would like to just be able to leave it in the locker room but it’s a difficult thing to do. They’re very sensitive to that. During the season, everybody’s a little tense around my household.

“But they all help. I don’t know if I could make it without my family. If I had to go home to an empty house, I think it would be very difficult.

“If you have small children, you know how it is. You have to feed them, bathe them, put their pajamas on, rock ‘em, read ‘em a story. It takes a couple of hours, and when you go through that, it seems to put everything in perspective.”

All things considered, Wilson says he’d still like to be the Raider quarterback.

“My wife and I talk about this a lot,” he says. “. . . But I guess the bottom line is I love to play this game. There are a lot of parts I don’t like, but when the whistle blows, I love that part of it. And that’s what keeps me playing.”

The Raiders would still like to move him but, a team official concedes, he’s liable to wind up anywhere from the No.2 quarterback to the waiver wire.

“Whenever there’s been an announcement contrary to what I wanted to see happen,” Wilson said, “I thought to myself, ‘OK, that’s what he’s going to do.’ But that shouldn’t diminish the enthusiasm or what I give to this occupation of mine. I’ll do the very best I can. If I do that, I’ll feel good about my effort. Then whatever happens, I can live with that.

“Sometimes it’s hard because you start feeling sorry for yourself. And you get discouraged and you kinda let up, do something so that you’re not sure you care any more. So you have to battle that. That’s part of the game.”

Raider Notes

The Raiders have put tight end Trey Junkin on the physically unable to perform list. Junkin hurt his left knee in last season’s third game and underwent surgery. Coach Tom Flores hopes another month of rehabilitation will help. . . . New tight end prospects are led by Gene Branton, a 6-5, 245-pound free agent who was once a Tampa Bay wide receiver and has been bulked up. He caught a touchdown pass in the Cowboy scrimmage and made another circus catch. . . . Flores says Jerry Robinson, recently arrested for possession of drugs, is expected to report to camp on schedule Wednesday. Said Flores: “We have that all taken care of.” . . . . The Raider-Cowboy rookies will scrimmage again Wednesday here. It will be closed to the public.