And so, since no one has dropped the ball yet, the many questions that surround the ultimate makeup of the five-man starting rotation have yet to be answered.

One spot is settled, it would seem. The right tackle will be Langston Walker. Elsewhere, chaos theory prevails.

At left tackle Barry Sims is playing well and continues to hold his spot over rookie Robert Gallery, who is universally considered a starter. Somewhere. Right now, Gallery must wait for the green light to resume the chase after hyperextending his right elbow in practice last week. Gallery did not play against Dallas Saturday but may be cleared to go against Arizona in the third exhibition game.

Adam Treu is still the center but what does all that playing time rookie Jake Grove got mean?

Right guard is a huge bottleneck. The nominal starter, Ron Stone, missed the first two weeks with a hamstring pull before finally starting against Dallas. Mo Collins has been limited with a bad knee giving Brad Badger inroads on a job.

Left guard Frank Middleton has two starts under his belt but is anything but brimming over with confidence. At the end of last season, he predicted the club would not have him back. The money they offered him changed his mind, but he is still skeptical.

"You kind of get that feeling still," he said. "It's one of those things where you walk around and don't know how many people want you here or like you. Shoot, I feel like I am the next one to go. I'm just waiting to see what is going to happen."

He couldn't have felt much better after he was knocked on his rear end by Dallas tackle LaRoi Glover, who is 55 pounds lighter than Middleton.

Eight men for four jobs has created more uncertainty than the Raider line has known in at least a decade.

If Gallery wins the left tackle job, the picture grows complex. Does Sims shift to left guard? Does Collins figure as the backup right tackle or is he still in the mix at right guard? Where does Badger go. He is able to play all five line positions.

While Middleton stews, Badger just shakes it off.

"All of us who have played this game have been in competition -- against each other, against other players," he said. "This is what we've done our whole lives. We understand it. I don't see any animosity between the guys. We are all pushing for each other. I wish all them luck and health."

"Sure, you'd like to have an inclination as to who the five will be," Treu said. "We've been running together for two and a half weeks and it is still up in the air. But that is good, too. It makes so you don't relax in a sense. That, I think, would hurt the unit if that were to happen."

He thinks the uncertainty is harder on the rookies, who have never been through the rigors -- both physical and mental -- of a training camp. However, when your name is Gallery and you were the second pick of the draft, there is also comfort.

"Yeah, I think about it (the veterans' plight)," Gallery said. "The way I look at it is even though I know it is a very high possibility that I won't get cut, I don't go into this going `Aw, I am going to be here at the end so it doesn't matter what I do.'

"I am working just as hard trying to make the roster as anybody else. Maybe it is a different roster, the top five, but it's all the same for me."

Turner wants his starting five in place by the preseason finale. He says the best five linemen will start and he puts no restrictions on who plays what position.

"We're looking hard at where we're at," he said. "Those guys are all playing well. The one thing we have is fairly veteran linemen. They are handling things extremely well.

"But there comes a point where you have to get going and get the five in that are going to be playing. And that might be the five that are playing. Or it might not be. The one thing we don't want to do is put up a lineup and then change that 10 days later."