Inside the NFL
Posted: Wednesday October 28, 1998 01:33 PM
Starting Over | Trying to
Escape LT's Shadow | Gentlemen, Start Your Firing
Dispatches: Couch Weighs His
Options | The End Zone: Beware, Ralph Lauren
The Buzz | The Inner Game: Defensing the Toss
Sweep | Dr. Z's
Forecast By Peter King Starting Over Kerry
Collins has a fresh outlook on football as he settles in as a Saint 
Last Saturday, as the Saints showered and dressed after a light morning
workout, backup quarterback Danny Wuerffel snuck over
to starter Billy Joe
Tolliver's locker and mischievously removed something from Tolliver's
jeans pocket. Tolliver saw the tail end of the prank. "Fat boy!" he
screamed at Wuerffel, who might carry a stray pound or two. "You better not
have done anything to my stuff. If you did, I'll s--- in your locker."
"This place," new Saints quarterback Kerry Collins said with a
chuckle, "is great."
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Tolliver, corralled by the Bucs' Regan Upshaw, will have to play his way out of the starting job. Damian Strohmeyer |
"This place," said coach Mike Ditka last week,
summing it up, "is the home for lost souls." Certainly for lost
quarterbacking souls, who have been marching into the Saints' picture for
the past two seasons. First, in an April 1997 trade, came Redskins reject
Heath Shuler, whose
career is in limbo because of nerve damage in his left foot. Later that
month, in the fourth round of the draft, came Wuerffel, the 1996 Heisman
Trophy winner out of Florida, whom no one wanted. In November came the
player canned by Buffalo for not doing his homework and embarrassing
himself in a game, Billy
Joe Hobert, now on injured reserve with a torn left Achilles. This year
came the unemployed golfaholic, Tolliver, whose most strenuous job until
the Saints called two months ago was taking out the trash. Finally two
weeks ago came Collins, the disgraced cornerstone of the Carolina franchise
who was waived on Oct. 13, six days after reportedly telling Panthers coach
Dom Capers that his heart wasn't in the game anymore. Now, in a new
locker room, after his sixth practice, dressing next to
starter-for-the-week Tolliver, Collins looked ecstatic. "I'm as excited
about football as I've ever been," Collins said. "I feel liberated."
You know why Collins feels so good? Because here he can be Joe Schmo. Here
he can blend in. Here he is not the First Pick in Franchise History. Here,
far from his 6,500-square-foot palace on a North Carolina lake, he tucks
himself into an $89-a-night hotel room. Although New Orleans is probably
only a way station for Collins—he was claimed on waivers on Oct. 14
and will be a free agent after this season—it's an ideal place for
him, a city where expectations are never too high. This lost soul is
precisely where he needs to be if he is going to start salvaging his
career. Around the NFL, Collins's image is dirt. He may as well wear a
scarlet Q on his Saints jersey—for quitter. Collins disputes
Capers's assertion that the quarterback said his heart wasn't in football,
though he declines to elaborate on his meeting with the coach. But Collins,
who played last year with a jaw that was shattered in a preseason game and
had to be wired together with four titanium plates and 21 metal screws,
never got over the club's decision last winter not to make a $6 million
payment on his contract, thus voiding its final three years. A restricted
free agent, Collins subsequently signed a one-year, $1.15 million deal with
the Panthers. "I don't know if I can erase what people are thinking of
me," Collins says, "but I can't worry about that. At least now when I wake
up, I feel like I can breathe. I'm alive. I've had a 10,000-pound weight
lifted off my shoulders. I just know that I feel better about my career
than I ever did in Carolina." This comes from the man who quarterbacked
the Panthers to the 1996 NFC Championship Game, in the process knocking the
49ers off their NFC West throne with a 327-yard, three-touchdown whipping
in San Francisco. "But I never felt like I could relax and just play
there," Collins says. "I heard [Chargers rookie quarterback] Ryan Leaf say something
this fall about how he wasn't sure he was cut out to do this, and I
identified with him so well. I was the first pick in Carolina. I was
supposed to be the key guy. At 22, 23, I was asked to carry a team like I
was 35 and had been in the NFL 10 or 12 years. The pressure never leaves,
24 hours a day, seven days a week. I'm not making excuses, but it weighed
on me all the time. So people have a perception about Kerry Collins and
think they know me? They have no idea who I am." Ever the showman,
Ditka would undoubtedly love to start Collins this Sunday at Carolina, but
such a move makes no sense in the wake of the Saints' 9-3 upset of the
Bucs. Tolliver played a smart game (20 completions in 32 attempts for 216
yards, with no touchdowns or interceptions). "He manages the game well, and
he doesn't make mistakes," Ditka said afterward. "Gotta stay with him."
Then he smiled a sly smile, and said, "But you never know what I'll do."
Collins dearly wants to be on the field. "You don't know how badly I
want to play in that game," he said after the win over the Bucs. But he's
not going to make waves. In fact, look for him to blend in just fine on the
Saints' sideline. Back to the
top Trying to Escape
LT's Shadow In 13 seasons Giants
outside linebacker Lawrence Taylor had 142 sacks (including 9 1/2 from his
rookie year, before the NFL began keeping the stat) and was voted to 10 Pro
Bowls. In 13 1/2 seasons itinerant outside linebacker Kevin Greene, who's back in
Carolina this season for his second tour of duty with the Panthers, has 144
sacks. He has been voted to just four Pro Bowls. Greene, who leads the
league with 11 sacks and is on pace to break Mark Gastineau's season record
of 22, doesn't claim he has had the impact on the game that Taylor
had—nor should he. In stopping the run and pursuing the passer, Taylor
was peerless. But Greene is peeved by the lack of recognition he has
received and wonders why he isn't considered one of the best defenders of
his day. Enmity among his fellow players has apparently hurt Greene.
Since 1995, Pro Bowl rosters have been determined by a vote of players,
coaches and fans, but before that, only the players cast votes. Greene, 36,
may have alienated some of his peers with his attention-grabbing
professional-wrestling persona. (He has even made some money as a guest
star in the ring.) But aren't Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin look-at-me
guys, too? Also, rumors of steroid use might have cost Greene the respect
of some players, though he has never tested positive for any banned
substance. "I've never done steroids and never will," he says. "It's a
cop-out for someone to say that's hurt me." Whatever the reasons, the
snubs have been obvious. On two occasions Greene wasn't voted to the Pro
Bowl even though he had more sacks than any of the three outside
linebackers who made it. This season marks the ninth time that he will
finish with a double-digit sack total. He led the league in '94 with the
Steelers and in '96 with the Panthers, and he is in excellent shape as he
pursues an NFL-record third sack title. By comparison, Taylor led the
league in sacks only once. Back
to the top
Gentlemen, Start Your Firing A
prediction on the order of NFL coaching terminations: the Ravens' Ted
Marchibroda; the Redskins' Norv Turner; the Eagles' Ray Rhodes; the Rams'
Dick Vermeil, who, if fired, would have to be paid a total of $5.7 million
for the final three years of his contract; the Cardinals' Vince Tobin; and
the Seahawks' Dennis Erickson, if Seattle falls short of the playoffs. Also
on the hot seat are the Bears' Dave Wannstedt, who probably must win seven
or eight games to keep his job, and the Bengals' Bruce Coslet, who needs to
show by December that the Bengals aren't as hopeless as they appear now.
Interim Chargers coach June Jones will be judged strictly on his
development of Ryan Leaf. Back to
the top Dispatches:
Couch Weighs His Options One college
scout who watched Kentucky extensively in October says junior quarterback
Tim Couch is significantly ahead of where Leaf and Peyton Manning were at
this time last season. But Couch, the scout says, is discouraged by the
hard time Manning—who ushered him around the Tennessee campus on a
recruiting trip four years ago—is having adjusting to the NFL. Couch
will have to weigh whether it would be more advantageous to come out in
1999, when the Browns will have a topflight organization and riches to
spend on free agents, or in 2000, when he would probably be drafted by the
worst team in the league.... Panthers defensive end Sean Gilbert, who last
April signed the richest contract for a defensive player in NFL history,
hasn't had a sack since Sept. 13. Back to the top The End Zone: Beware, Ralph Lauren Backup Steelers running back Richard Huntley likes to
sew and makes his own pajamas. Back to the top The Buzz 1.
Counterfeit Bucs The most damning offensive stat this season: In 38
first-half possessions, preseason darling Tampa Bay has produced only three
field goals. Starting with a game against the Vikings this Sunday in Tampa,
the schedule gets only tougher. "Now we find out if we have the heart of a
champion or the heart of a cowardly lion," Bucs defensive tackle Warren Sapp said after a
9-3 loss to the Saints. 2. El Perfecto? The Broncos and the
Vikings are 7-0, but they both have a serious November roadblock before
they can start thinking about 16-0. Denver (four home games remaining, five
away) has a Nov. 16 date at Kansas City, where it is 1-3 under Mike
Shanahan. Minnesota (five home, four away) has a brutal five-day
stretch—the Packers at home, the Cowboys on the road for a
Thanksgiving Day tilt. What are the chances of either going undefeated?
Says Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin, "It's as remote a possibility as someone
hitting 70 home runs." 3. Good News Bears Only a month ago we
buried the men of Dave Wannstedt, the coach the front office brought back
this year for what looked like a second-straight dismal season. Now Chicago
has won three of its last four. Back to the top The Inner Game: Defensing the Toss Sweep The Falcons entered Sunday's game against the Jets
with the NFL's second-best defense against the run. Having not allowed a
100-yard rushing performance in 14 consecutive games, they had set their
sights on cooling off Curtis Martin. The shifty
Martin had run for more than 100 yards in each of his previous three games,
thanks mostly to a play that few teams employ as often or as effectively as
the Jets. "They use a toss sweep off of a bunch formation," Falcons
defensive coordinator Rich Brooks said last Thursday. "Other teams run it
once or twice in a game. The Jets will do it up to 15 times." In New
York's toss sweep, wideouts Wayne Chrebet and Keyshawn Johnson line up
on the strong side, with Chrebet wide and Johnson in the slot about two
yards outside of the tight end. As Martin gathers a short pitch, Chrebet
moves inside and blocks Johnson's man, and Johnson cracks down on the
player across from the tight end, freeing up that blocker or the tackle to
pull and obliterate a defensive back. "Some defenses put a linebacker
out there, but then the Jets can kill you with the pass," Brooks said. "You
hate to have a linebacker cover a receiver." Instead, for most of the
first half on Sunday, New York crossed up the Falcons by running plays out
of the bunch formation to the weak side. Then with 1:35 left in the half
and the Falcons making adjustments, Martin took a pitch to the strong side
and ran behind 312-pound right tackle Jason Fabini, who wiped
out 203-pound cornerback Michael Booker. The result
was a 13-yard gain, Martin's longest of the day. With the Falcons
focused on stopping that play, Vinny Testaverde threw for
two third-quarter touchdowns. All told, Martin ran the toss sweep six
times, for 46 yards. Despite sitting out the fourth quarter, he finished
with 101 yards rushing as the Jets rolled to a 28-3 win. "They knew
what we were looking for and brought out a new package," Brooks said
afterward. "Teams give you something different every week. This was just a
lot more different than usual." —Richard Deutsch
Back to the
top Issue date: November 2,
1998
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