Hilger Stays Out of the Stands and Shuts Up Critics on Field

By SCOTT OSTLER

Sept. 21, 1987 12 AM PT

Rusty Hilger’s condition has been upgraded from critical to fair, and for a Raider starting quarterback, that’s fantastic.

After his debut as a starter, when he picked apart the Green Bay Packers defense for six yards and made the world a brighter place for Marc Wilson, Rusty came back Sunday and quarterbacked a marvelous game.

OK, maybe marvelous is too strong. How about adequate? Still, in a two-game National Football League season, Hilger will be a leading candidate for Comeback Player of the Year, not to mention Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award.

The man the Raiders are counting on to lead them out of the Era of Mediocrity showed some promise Sunday, presiding over a 27-7 defeat of the Detroit Lions. Hilger completed 20 of 39 passes for 234 yards and a touchdown, and didn’t strangle a single Coliseum fan.

“I came out before the pregame warmups,” Hilger said, “and there was a guy standing at the rail, he said, ‘Hilger, you’re weak!’ I felt like going up in the stands, I really did.”

Hey, relax, Rusty. Before a big game, Al Davis can get a little keyed up.

Seriously, though . . . when the Raider fans’ most vicious heckle is something you can print in this paper, you’ve won some hearts.

Maybe it’s just that Rusty is a easygoing fellow. Even the booing doesn’t bother him a lot.

Not that anyone blames the Raider fans, considering the quarterbacking they’ve had to endure the last half decade or so.

With Hilger, there is at least a glimmer of hope for the future. Not only that, it’s tough not to like the kid. He opens the game Sunday with five incompletions in six passes, sucks it up and plays pretty well.

He didn’t even blow his cool when about $20-million worth of Raider superstar receivers dropped five of his passes.

Even more surprising, afterward Rusty actually talked about the experience. Raider quarterbacks of recent years have been fellows who tended not to relish the postgame give-and-take with the boys and girls of the press. Rusty, he likes to talk. He even talks loudly enough so you don’t confuse his postgame comments with the last words of a dying man.

“I do know I felt a little more comfortable today,” he said. “I set my feet and stood in there a little better than I have done. I felt a lot more confident. We worked hard on it all week, they talked to me from Monday on about being more patient, ‘Don’t rush, but hurry.’ I felt much more calm, much more at ease.”

Of course, what will happen when-- if --the Raiders face a real opponent remains to be seen.

One thing I like about Hilger is he breaks down the complexities of the game to a level even I can grasp.

Asked about his 14-yard rainbow touchdown pass to Dokie Williams, Hilger said: “I threw it, he caught it.”

Actually, bringing the game back to the basics might be what will establish Hilger as a bona fide Raider quarterback.

“He’s a lot more extroverted than the other quarterbacks,” tight end Todd Christensen said. “I like the fact that periodically you can come back to the huddle and say, ‘This is open, that is open.’ Young guys are prone to shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Gee, that’s what was called from the sidelines.’

“It’s turned into a chess game, where everything is called in from the sideline. I miss the days of guys coming back to the huddle and saying, ‘I’m kicking this guy’s butt, throw me the ball.’ Maybe Rusty’ll bring a little of that back.”

If so, Christensen stands to benefit. He has been known to urge a quarterback to throw his way on occasion. Sunday he caught 6 passes for 88 yards, double what any other Raider receiver caught, and only dropped one.

With Hilger at quarterback, look for some lively huddles, with frequent butt-kick reports from several precincts.

For whatever it’s worth, this is the first Raider quarterback since Snake Stabler to have a flair, a bit of the outrageous hotdog in him.

Hilger, who has started two NFL games, drives a long Mercedes and wears a large gold No. 12 around his neck. There’s a touch of Hollywood here, but with some perspective thrown in.

“I did a few good things, but I still gotta improve,” Hilger said. “I want to be able to take charge of the team and run ‘em down the field the way they did it in the old days. . . . I think I handled most situations pretty well. The errors I made were not in judgment, but errors in throws. When you fall off a horse, you get right back on and do it again.”

What, fall off again?

Not that what Hilger does is important to the Raiders or anything.

“Rusty’s the man who pulls the trigger,” Christensen said. “As he goes, we go.”

That’s something to think about, just in case anyone ever plays pro football again.