Raiders : McDaniel’s Task Won’t Be an Easy One

Lester Hayes having been waived to parts unknown, the Raiders are trying out cornerbacks, and the reporters are auditioning comics. Whoever intends to fill those cleats has his work cut out.

Meet Terry McDaniel, draft choice 1B out of Tennessee and ninth selection overall--the cornerback the Raiders got with the pick they got from Houston for Sean Jones.

It’s a new era for the silver and black. McDaniel is small; Hayes was a former college linebacker who would flower up to 220 pounds in the off-season. McDaniel is soft-spoken; Hayes was Hayes.

Hayes was a fifth-round choice, a surprise who was starting by midseason of his rookie year. McDaniel is a No. 1 pick, despite undergoing surgery on his left shoulder in January, which kept him out of all workouts and mini-camps and contact until he hit a blocking sled Friday morning and lived to tell about it.

“It really was a test,” McDaniel said. “I know I thought about it. After we were hitting the sled with our right shoulders, we started with our left. That’s where I said, ‘Here comes the test.’

“I had no problem at all. Made me feel good, really, after hitting it.”

This was the first time McDaniel had tried to hit anything in a while. He hurt the shoulder late in his junior season and nursed it all the way through his senior year, managing to make himself a first-round selection in the process. Small (5 feet 9 inches, 177 pounds), with a reputation of being no factor as a tackler, he has been timed in the 4.35-second range for 40 yards, which is why the Raiders and everyone else stayed interested.

“We didn’t know it was that bad at first,” McDaniel said. “We thought it was a bruised shoulder. The next season, when we went to two-a-days, I found out it was a serious problem.

“It was something like, I could go out for a month and it might not bother me at all. Then again, I could go out and it could pop out three-four times in just one day. So it was really just staying out of a lot of contact my senior year.

“Did it hurt when it popped out? Oh yeah, definitely.

“The worst was at Mississippi State. That was like the third game of the season. That was pretty bad. I thought that was it for the year. But it happened at the end of the first half, and by the third quarter, it was feeling normal.

“It just had me worried. You never know how (pro) teams were going to react. Just wait and see and pray.

“When I went to the combine workout, my arm was in a sling. It was two weeks after my surgery. I just took the physical exams. It was a downer. I’d lost eight pounds, and I’m already not a big guy. Looking like that, my arm in a sling, it didn’t help me out much.”

Turns out, it didn’t hurt much.

The Raiders needed cornerbacks. Lionel Washington had struggled trying to replace Hayes; the once-legendary Mike Haynes was 35 and had missed significant parts of the last two seasons with injuries.

The top cornerback prospect in the draft, Oklahoma’s Ricky Dixon, went to the Cincinnati Bengals as the fifth choice, or the Raiders, owning the sixth and ninth picks, might have chosen to go with Dixon and Michael Irvin. The Bengals stepped up, so the Raiders went with Tim Brown and McDaniel.

Now, McDaniel has been lined up on the left side, the side he played at Tennessee--and also Washington’s side.

“We’re pretty good friends,” McDaniel said. “It’s his position, not mine.

“Right now, I know I need some work. I’m just going to really try to work on the basics. I’m backpedaling a different way than I did in college. I’m trying to put everything together slowly instead of jumping all into it.”

He didn’t say anything about deceased presidents, running a gantlet of pit bulls wearing pork chop underwear, or his destiny. Reporters are still looking, but the Raiders will settle for someone who can cover. So be it.

Raider Notes

In the wake of Marc Wilson’s departure, it’s not too soon to start asking who the quarterback is going to be, is it? Good. Answer: Yet to be determined. Coach Mike Shanahan says it’s a wide-open race between Vince Evans, Steve Beuerlein, Rusty Hilger and Jim Plunkett. Informed speculation says it’s between Evans and Beuerlein. . . . Shanahan: “We’ve just got ‘em listed in alphabetical order right now. Hey, I’m serious when I say that. Right now I don’t know who the quarterback is going to be.” . . . There is a tendency to think of Evans as the front-runner, since the Raiders have never started anyone as unseasoned as Beuerlein, but this may be a new deal. Shanahan:”I think most people feel the ideal situation is to have an established quarterback and bring in a young quatterback and groom him. Our situation obviously isn’t going to be that way. We’re going to have to evaluate the situation daily and come up with a guy and that guy’s going to have to do the job.”