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Surf's up QB Flutie feeling at home in San Diego
LA JOLLA, Calif. -- Maybe it's the scooter, a blue and silver motorized stand-up number that Doug Flutie uses to zip around on at Chargers training camp. But when he's outfitted in his unofficial camp uniform of a snug khaki baseball cap pulled low, blue jeans and an untucked T-shirt, it's hard to remember Flutie is a 38-year-old quarterback readying for his 17th season of professional football. Boyish? Yes. But maybe it's because Flutie, after years of searching for an NFL home, finally looks the part of a man secure in his surroundings. After the almost perpetual storm that was Buffalo, what's not to feel care-free about in sunny San Diego? "You know what? I don't know if he ever has felt this secure, anywhere," says new Chargers general manager John Butler, who like Flutie made the cross-country trek from Buffalo to San Diego this offseason. "Doug knows he's not going to be looking over his shoulder here." By now, the entire football world knows how the Flutie- Rob Johnson experiment worked out in Buffalo. Badly. But the quarterback blood feud is over. Johnson won and stayed on. Flutie lost and moved on. Butler, the man who created the situation, is too smart to make the same mistake twice. "See, I might have screwed the whole thing up in Buffalo," Butler, the former Bills general manager, concedes. "I was just working under the thought that, 'Boy, if we've got two good quarterbacks, we've got even a better chance to win.'
"But I was still thinking about when we had Jimmy Kelly and Frank Reich. The one difference there was Frank knew what his job was as a backup. In this case I had two guys who are just stiff competitors, and damn if we didn't get the crowd split, and that's unhealthy." Three thousand miles and a few months as his team's established starter has done Flutie a world of good. He's confident, content and ready to surprise us once again in a career built around the element of surprise. Spend five minutes with him and it becomes apparent that Buffalo is far, far away on so many levels. "This is a very good fit and a very comfortable situation," Flutie says of the Chargers, his fourth NFL team. "I'm just a lot more relaxed and people are genuinely excited about me being here. It just makes you feel good. In the NFL, there's no question I've never felt this secure." Seemingly everything broke right for Flutie this offseason. Dumped onto the free-agent market, he landed a six-year, $30.3 million contract from the one team that coveted him as a starter. Just before they signed Flutie, the Chargers finally gave up on former starting quarterback Ryan Leaf, ridding Flutie and the entire locker room of that potential problem. Not long afterward, San Diego made its controversial decision to trade the rights to Michael Vick to Atlanta and draft Purdue's Drew Brees in the second round. Another distraction, having the draft's No. 1 overall pick looming just over Flutie's shoulder, was averted. A path has been cleared for Flutie to make this his team, his town, and his time. "He has to have some peace of mind this year that he throw a couple interceptions, have a bad play or two, and still know he'll be in the game," says new Chargers defensive end Marcellus Wiley, yet another Buffalo transplant. "He won't have to deal with all the political pressures he dealt with the last few years in Buffalo. We had a little civil war going on up there." Don't look for any such skirmish to break out between Flutie and Brees. The old-timer and the kid have hit it off well, and there's good-natured -- and unforced -- joshing at every turn. "Dog!," yells Flutie to Brees, as the young quarterback walks back to his dorm after lunch with a couple of cookies big enough to be hubcaps. "I got me some," Brees replies, laughing as he goes. And, no, mentoring duties were not written into Flutie's contract. But so far, the two have fallen into just such an easy, comfortable relationship without prompting. Brees loves to mention that he was all of 5 in 1984, when Flutie launched the Hail Mary pass that made him a national figure and won him the Heisman Trophy. Flutie, milking the elder statesmen role, makes sure his new teammate is aware that he was playing high school football in 1978, the year before Brees was born. "Doug has been great to us," says Brees. "He'll come up on the sideline, even if we don't ask him a question, and say, 'Did you see what I did? The reason I did that was because I saw this or that, or they were blitzing a linebacker.' He lays it out for you where you wouldn't know otherwise. It's great, because Doug's my kind of player. He can do a lot of things that other guys can't." The idea of Flutie "mentoring" Johnson, his former rival, brings new meaning to the term. Asked if he has ever felt as comfortable with a younger backup as he does with Brees, Flutie pauses, letting the question linger: "Umm, not really. Not really. He's the right kid in the right situation. I have a good rapport with him already. Drew's fun to be around, and I don't know if respectful is the right word to describe his attitude, but it’s close." A little respect goes a long way with Flutie. A 5-foot-10 quarterback in a league that worships size, he has been denied his due often in a roller coaster career that has wound through eight teams in three different leagues. That the 6-foot Brees heard his share of the "too short" stereotype tossed about freely in pre-draft scouting reports this year only served to create an instant bond between the two. "You know what Doug told me?" says Butler. "Maybe there sometimes comes a point where it's not all bad to help somebody. And then, when your time is up, you can look back and say I had something to do with it. That's when I knew he would be helping Drew this year." But if Flutie thought he was merely San Diego's bridge to the future and the Brees era, he wouldn't be buying into the franchise's new program as enthusiastically as he has. Labeled the "anti-Leaf", Flutie and his 30-14 record as an NFL starter -- including 21-9 in Buffalo -- is more like the anti-dote for a Chargers team that has reeled to five consecutive non-winning seasons and hasn't won a playoff game since its 1994 Super Bowl season. After three years of embarrassment with Leaf, Flutie has been as refreshing as a sea breeze on a hot Southern California day. "Because of what they experienced in the last several years here, he was so badly needed here it was unbelievable," says Butler. "I wasn't here, but with Leaf it sounds like the whole team sat around and wondered what he was going to do next. Last year, [head coach] Mike Riley spent all his time trying to diffuse a ticking time bomb." The bomb went off, the Chargers finished a franchise-worst 1-15, and Leaf was sent packing. Now it's starting over time. Fittingly, San Diego turns to a quarterback who has had more than his share of new beginnings. "I take pride in the fact that I am 38 and I'm still playing, and not just cashing a check," says Flutie. "I'm playing and I'm still athletic and I can run around and do the things I like to do. And hopefully I'll turn 40 and still be doing it. That's a hell of an achievement as far as I'm concerned." Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.
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