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Oakland: Longshot hit by misfortune
Posted: Tuesday August 17, 1999 12:48 PM
This is the 11th in a series of postcards Sports Illustrated's Peter King will e-mail from his annual NFL training-camp tour. Sunday, Aug. 15 TEAM: Oakland Raiders SITE: Network Associates Coliseum, I think it's called. On a beautiful day, when the Cowboys and Raiders met in a preseason game, I spent more than a few minutes wondering to myself, Why do I live in New Jersey? Breezy, cloudless, mid-70s. Nice setting for a game, even with the baseball field cutout stretching from one 20-yard line to the other. One problem: The music's too loud and far too bikerish. When Dave Matthews blared midway through the fourth quarter, I was stunned because I'd been Pantera-ed to death for so long. (I don't know if it was Pantera. But it was loud and obnoxious.) PLAYER I SAW WHOM I REALLY LIKED: In this mess of a game -- Oakland 10, Dallas 3 on a Tyrone Wheatley one-yard smash with 35 seconds left, sparing us all overtime -- it wasn't easy to pick someone out. But actually I liked the poise of Raider rookie free-agent quarterback Scott Dreisbach on a couple of second-half drives. He finished 8-of-12 for 111 yards before (see below) something awful happened. And I really liked the aggressiveness and playmaking ability of high-motor linebacker K.D. Williams, who might just unseat veteran journeyman Richard Harvey at an outside slot if he keeps up this kind of play. Williams had two sacks of Dallas quarterbacks and followed up the second with a bruising four-yard tackle-for-loss of Dallas running back Denvis Manns, then followed that up by leveling the Dallas returner on the kickoff return following the game's only touchdown. Interesting prospect. He played for two CFL teams then went to work as a skycap in the Tampa airport for a year and a half before landing in Dallas in 1998, getting cut, signing with Kansas City, getting cut, and landing in Raiders camp. He's smallish at 6-foot and 235 pounds, but he'll be an asset if Jon Gruden keeps him. THE FOOD: I did the right thing, skipping the press-box dogs by having granola with berries and nuts, with a side of rye toast and big pot of coffee, before I left the hotel in San Francisco to come to the game. CAMP ODDITY: Sunday's opponent, Dallas, had players on the sideline with the first names of Flozell, Ebenezer, Singor, MarTay, Zebbie, Dat, Denvis, Beau, Izell, Peppi , Kavika and Chance. My personal favorite, however, was LaDouphyous. Dear NFL Junkie: I just hate the meaninglessness of preseason games, and that point was driven home when Dreisbach, trying desperately to make the team, scurried around left end in the final minutes of this game, got leveled by two Cowboys, landed awkwardly, and broke the fibula (lower leg bone) in his right leg. No one thought Dreisbach was more than a camp thrower until he started playing in these scrums. He helped beat the Rams two weeks ago, and completed his first five throws in this game. He set up the winning drive with an impromptu 43-yard, picture-perfect throw to Kenny Shedd. At that moment, he had clearly passed Pat Barnes for third on the Raiders QB depth chart. Then disaster struck. (O.K., you might be asking your correspondent right now: You hate preseason games, but then you point out that Dreisbach got his chance to make the roster by excelling in them. True. He could also have excelled by not running the naked bootleg, and I feel sure he wouldn't have run that play had the Raiders been in a controlled scrimmage against Dallas instead of a full-blown game. The preseason is needlessly deadly.) And so there was Dreisbach after the game, his right leg wrapped in some yellow contraption from the upper shin down. "I'm sorry,'' owner Al Davis said quietly, shaking his hand. "That's okay,'' Dreisbach said. And wideout Rodney Williams came by, unaware of the severity of the injury. "How is it, man?'' Williams said. "Broken,'' Dreisbach said. "Oh, damn!'' Williams said, his face pained. "DAMN!'' Dreisbach was oddly accepting of his fate. I thought it was horrible. This might be the only real shot Dreisbach ever has of making a roster, but now he'll probably be put on injured reserve and be out for the year, even though this is supposedly only a two-month injury. And next year, nothing will be guaranteed him, in whatever camp he lands. "How can you be taking this so well?'' I asked. "Well, I was able to compete in two games and show them I could play,'' he said. "This stinks, but I'm happy I did pretty well. It'd have been worse if it happened in practice and I hadn't gotten to show what I could do. I'll be fine.'' I'm the parent of two teens. Walking away from Dreisbach, I immediately had this thought: I hope when big-time adversity hits them someday, they can handle it with the maturity and will of Scott Dreisbach. More postcards: Cleveland | Detroit | Tampa Bay | Minnesota | Green Bay | Chicago | New Orleans | Kansas City | Dallas | Washington
Check back soon for more Postcards from Camp. To send a question to
Peter King's King's NFL Mailbag, click
here.
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