Several Choices but No Decision at Quarterback : Pass Word Is Sought on Raiders

After a month of thoughtful review in El Segundo, home of the Raiders and their runner-up in a recent worst-QB-in-Los Angeles poll, they have shaken up the quarterback rankings again.

And the new Raider quarterback is (flourish of trumpets, the envelope please) . . .

No one?

Someone has to be listed No. 1 on the depth chart by the start of training camp. That doesn’t start until July. Right now, no one is.

“You have to start somewhere, but we really haven’t decided which way we’re going to start,” Coach Tom Flores said. “And how you start doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how you’re going to end up.

“We’ll make the decision somewhere along the line. Obviously, we have to tell them (the quarterbacks). It’s not something they can find out the first day of camp.”

On its face, this looks like a demotion for Marc Wilson, last season’s No. 1 who quarterbacked the team to 11 victories in 14 starts but finished next to last in the AFC passing ratings. Wilson threw three interceptions in the season-ending playoff loss to the Patriots and was edged by the Rams’ Dieter Brock in the Herald Examiner’s poll.

Flores still defends Wilson, pointing out that he played hurt all season. Other Raider officials note that the offensive line took a long time to come around and that the receiving corps was the franchise’s youngest ever, and that rookie Jessie Hester dropped a lot of what he touched in the first half of the season.

There is another factor to be considered. Some of Wilson’s angriest critics were teammates, especially on the defensive unit. Recent off-hand remarks--”That one position is killing us,” said a veteran a couple of days ago--indicate that their anger hasn’t subsided.

There has been speculation that the job would be put up for grabs among the three Raider quarterbacks. The early line might be:

Marc Wilson 2-1

Jim Plunkett 2-1

Rusty Hilger 2-1

And one a little more adventurous might be:

Hilger 3-2

Wilson 2-1

Plunkett 2-1

The Raiders also are thought to be looking at other quarterbacks in the NFL. Richard Todd’s name has come up again.

The Buffalo Bills recently suggested that the Raiders also are eyeing a United States Football League quarterback named Jim Kelly, whose NFL rights are owned by the Bills. The Raiders love Kelly. Kelly is telling everyone he wants to play for the Raiders. What’s going on?

L’AFFAIRE KELLY

Kelly is a former Houston Gambler who has just become a New Jersey General. If the USFL season doesn’t happen, he would presumably be free to go to the NFL. The Bills have his rights through draft day, 1987. After that, Kelly would be free to solicit other offers, but the Bills would have the right of first refusal.

There is some confusion over whether the Bills actually filed a tampering charge against the Raiders, or just informally asked the NFL to look into it.

Said Bill Polian, general manager of the Bills: “We haven’t said that (that a charge was ever filed). You didn’t get that from anybody in the Buffalo Bills’ organization. There was some speculation that we had. But we said from day one, our position is no comment. Our position hasn’t changed.

“I don’t know that anything is going on between the Raiders and Kelly. I have no way of knowing it. I’m sure I’d be the last to know.”

All that anyone knows about was a meeting between Raider executive assistant Al LoCasale, Kelly and his agent on the street in the New Orleans’ French Quarter two days before the Super Bowl.

LoCasale said: “Any accusation that the Raiders have tampered with Jim Kelly is totally absurd. I was there with my wife and a friend and his wife. We ran into Howard Slusher (an agent) and we were standing there talking on the sidewalk.

“Howard looks over my shoulder and says, ‘There are a couple of guys I want to introduce you to.’ It’s Kelly and Greg Bell (a Buffalo running back) and their agent, A.J. Faigin. I say, ‘Howard, someone’s going to take a picture of this and we’ll get accused of tampering.’ And we all laughed.

“I was introduced to Kelly. I told him, ‘You’re big enough to be a linebacker.’ He told me, ‘You know I play quarterback.’

“I said. ‘You and I can’t even talk that much football.’ And that was it.

“It would be inconceivable for Howard Slusher, who represents Marc Wilson, arranging a meeting between the Raiders and another quarterback. If the criterion is a player saying he wants to play for the Raiders, then Kelly joins a long list of talented players who’ve said that.”

Kelly seems to have joined with a vengeance. The Buffalo News has reported that he went to a Houston charity affair wearing a Raider cap, and told a sportscaster confidant that they were going to give the Bills such a high salary proposal that Buffalo would dump him off to you-know-whom.

Kelly was also quoted by the Buffalo News’ Vic Carucci as having said that his agents “had conversations with them (Raiders).”

“Jim has specifically denied that,” Faigin said from his office in Akron, Ohio. “He might have said something off the cuff. Everybody’s asking what his situation is. . . . I certainly did not negotiate with anyone.”

Whether the Bills filed a charge, or just called the NFL office, the effect is the same. Everyone has been put on notice. The Bills do not welcome any Raider interest. They are not interested in making any deals. YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS

Would the Raiders draft a quarterback? They already have a young one they like, Hilger, a sixth-round draft pick last season. If they go with a kid, it’s likely to be the one already on the roster.

The Raiders don’t do that. In their entire history, the only rookie quarterback ever to start a game was Flores, in 1960, when the entire AFL was a rookie. Ken Stabler didn’t start until his fourth pro season.

They wouldn’t go with such a young one, would they?

“I wouldn’t say wouldn’t, “ Flores says. “It’s that we haven’t had to. There’s a difference. . . . It’s mainly because we’ve always had a pretty good veteran playing.

“When Jim (Plunkett) was drafted by New England, they played him because they had to. Same thing with (Dan) Pastorini in Houston and Archie Manning in New Orleans. They were playing for very poor teams and they all suffered, although they all became good quarterbacks.

“I also think, if you’re a young quarterback and you have talent and you’re with a good team, you’re going to do all right. For example, Dan Marino with Miami. I don’t think there’s any question he wouldn’t have done as well if he hadn’t gone to as good a team. I think if we ever had to play a young quarterback here, he’d do pretty well.

“Misgivings? You always have a few misgivings. But I don’t think it’s a total fear of it.”

Flores also plans to continue calling plays from the sideline, a practice he began last season. That might make it easier to play a young quarterback.

On the minus side, Hilger is untested, inexperienced, an intriguing question mark. He is expected to participate in both Raider mini-camps and the coming quarterback meetings. If he looks good, his chance might come early.

If not, the call could go out once more to . . . PLUNK?

If it’s the off-season, the Raiders must be wondering if they can get one more season from Plunkett. A year ago, he was 37, and the Raiders were hoping he had one left. Now he’s 38 and the question hasn’t changed.

Last fall, he completed 68% of his passes in his three starts before the 49ers’ Jeff Stover dislocated his left shoulder and ended his season. He was ready by season’s end but the Raiders never activated him. Flores said he didn’t want Wilson looking over his shoulder.

This summer, though, if Wilson looks behind him, he might see a familiar figure.

“Jim’s a remarkable guy,” Flores said. “He’s been counted out so many times and come back.

“He still wants to play. He keeps himself in relatively good shape. He didn’t take a pounding last season because he missed most of the season. As of now, we’re counting on him to come back and compete.

“You never know how it will affect a guy, missing a whole season. He’s 38. But you have to give him the respect. He’s had such a great career for us.”

But that’s not to say you can write off . . . THE INCUMBENT

Standard procedure is that last season’s incumbent opens the next one as No. 1, or at least goes to camp that way. That the Raiders are wavering suggests a demotion, even if Flores says Wilson hasn’t lost ground.

The Raiders gave Wilson a lot of room last season. They have a guaranteed $800,000-a-year investment in him that extends through 1987, and they needed to find out what he’d do with an opportunity. Would he improve?

As the season progressed and the staff tried to get back to Raider football, Wilson’s interceptions took off. The question remains whether it was a fair test. Wilson played the season with a separated left shoulder and a sore right ankle. He completed 57% of his passes in ’83 and 54% in ‘84, playing with a bad thumb. But he had to rally to get to 49% last season.

“I don’t think you ever saw him healthy,” Flores said. “He’s more than a 49% completion guy. Our attack is better than that.

“When he hurt his shoulder, we forgot about his ankle. We were running the Cleveland film and we noticed there was something funny in his drop. We ran it over and over. I said, ‘I know why he’s doing it. He can’t push off his ankle.’

“That was the day that Rusty Hilger had the flu and couldn’t even stand up. There was one play where Marc got hit. He’s down and you can see him grimace in pain. But he knew he had to stay in.

“There was that game the year before in Chicago, where he was in the locker room getting his thumb X-rayed. He sees on TV that David Humm has been hurt, grabs his stuff and goes back out.”

You’d think the incumbent will at least be given a chance to compete for the job. They may even start him out No. 1. But this time he’ll have to show more.

Of course, there’s the possibility of . . . MR. X

When Plunkett went down last season, rumors circulated that the Raiders were interested in Todd, a reserve for the Saints, and Doug Williams, a USFL player. A Raider source said that Williams’ name hasn’t come up recently, but that Todd’s has.

The Cowboys are shopping their backup, Gary Hogeboom, who has a rifle that would fit right in with the Raiders. The Raider scouts aren’t thought to be high on him, though.

Said a Cowboy source: “Al Davis is one of the master poker players of our time, but if he’s interested in Hogeboom, he hasn’t indicated it. . . . What will he do? I think he thinks he has a pretty good quarterback in Rusty Hilger.”

Flores said: “I know you hear certain things. If you went a little further, you’d hear certain things about other positions. We’ve never been a team that publicized who we were talking to, but we’ll talk to anybody. If we feel we can help the team, we’ll do it.

“We brought in Plunkett when we had Ken Stabler. We’ve never been a team that was concerned about having a surplus at one position. We felt when the dust settled, the best player would play.”