THE NFL / BILL PLASCHKE : This Season Is One They Should Throw Back

Some anniversary celebration this has been.

The hardest hit so far was delivered in a New Orleans bar. The most exciting run was a hip-hop dance.

The most important injury occurred on an interstate highway. The most interesting play was radioed to a quarterback from a concession stand.

Our senses overloaded by throwback uniforms and nostalgic films, we have some idea how the NFL wanted to commemorate 75 years of professional football.

We don’t think this is it.

One coach was reported missing by his players after he left the field during the fourth quarter to use the bathroom.

Another coach was refused free parking at his stadium’s lot because the attendant didn’t recognize him . . . and he coached the league’s only undefeated team.

Still another coach went for a two-point conversion despite strenuous objections from his staff . . . then later acknowledged that he had misread his strategy chart after it had been smudged in the rain.

At the midway point of the league’s 75th birthday party, it’s a good thing George Halas isn’t around to witness it. By now, he would be chewing candles.

Thanks to numerous changes in everything from rules to rosters, the 1994 version of the NFL is far removed from the days of real men with real jack-o’-lantern smiles.

This is no longer a football league, but a theme park.

This is a pleasant Sunday diversion notable not for its lessons in courage and determination but for its wild rides, unusual exhibits and sideshows.

John Elway has been booed. Barry Switzer has been cheered. Bill Belichick has been, uh, embraced.

The San Diego Chargers, picked to finish fourth by many, have been splendid.

The Raiders, picked to advance to the Super Bowl by many, have been pathetic.

And the once-proud Green Bay Packers have pouted, stumbled, and even been moved out of Milwaukee.

On national television, a father spanked a son. A reporter went grocery shopping with a linebacker. And the best coach of our era became an insufferable talking head.

The once legendary run-and-shoot offense of the Houston Oilers is being led by . . . Billy Joe Tolliver?

The Washington shoes of quarterbacks Billy Kilmer, Sonny Jurgensen, Joe Theismann and Doug Williams are being filled by . . . Gus Frerotte?

And the league’s best passer is not Joe, or Danny or Boomer, but somebody named Drew.

This same Drew Bledsoe recently acknowledged accidentally lining up under a guard.

The second half of this season will contain more substance. The second half always does. There might even be a good game that does not involve Joe Montana or Elway.

But for now, eight Sundays down, nine Sundays remaining, it’s worth taking a tour of the place.

*

Our first stop is the winners’ exhibit.

Look, aren’t those the San Francisco 49ers piling on top of one another in celebration?

Isn’t that Rickey Watters promising to shut up and smile? Isn’t that Ken Norton Jr. vowing that before the season ends, he will make at least one important tackle? Isn’t that Steve Young making plans to run out and buy a comb?

Why, it seems they have even forgiven Deion Sanders for the season’s most exciting run, a 93-yard interception return that became an embarrassing 10-second boogie in front of the Atlanta Falcons’ bench.

And why not?

The Dallas Cowboys, clearly the best team in the league for a third consecutive season, suddenly look beatable. Even if their potential downfall has nothing to do with a football.

The problem is an injury to the best offensive lineman in football. But the playing field was an interstate highway, and the equipment was a Mercedes.

After celebrating a bruising victory over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, tackle Erik Williams suffered a possible season-ending knee injury when his luxury car skidded off the road in the middle of the night.

For the last two seasons, Williams has been the guardian angel of running back Emmitt Smith and quarterback Troy Aikman. Without Williams, Smith gains fewer yards, Aikman takes more hits, chaos ensues.

Not that chaos doesn’t ensue there most of the time anyway, what with Switzer taking fourth-quarter potty breaks.

That’s fine with the 49ers.

After struggling while their best offensive linemen wore a variety of slings and casts during the first half, they are thrilled that their team could be together again by their mid-November showdown with the Cowboys in San Francisco.

In the last 11 quarters, the 49er defense has stopped bickering and the offense has outscored opponents, 110-33. Quarterback Young and Coach George Seifert, not the best of friends, have joined in the realization that if they don’t advance to the Super Bowl this year, they might never do it.

Seifert will get fired and Young will be ordered to tend the guest register in the Joe Montana Hall of Fame. Beating the Cowboys would certainly be more fun. And now, it can happen.

There have been no other true winners in the first half. Only teasers.

The San Diego Chargers showed Sunday that they are neither deep nor experienced enough to win the sort of game in which everything goes wrong.

Coach Bobby Ross, who became notable in the first half for his misunderstanding with a stadium parking attendant, had better get used to it. If he wants to park at the Super Bowl, he will also have to pay.

The Cleveland Browns, who share the league’s best record with the Cowboys and Chargers, have actually turned Belichick into a human being. Now, if somebody can turn Vinny Testaverde into a quarterback.

The two leading challengers to the Cowboys and 49ers are probably the Minnesota Vikings and Pittsburgh Steelers, two good defensive teams with veteran attacks.

But does Viking quarterback Warren Moon have enough left for a playoff run? And when will somebody in Pittsburgh realize that Barry Foster needs not only his head examined, but also his heart?

The Philadelphia Eagles? It’s not that Coach Rich Kotite is a dunce for saying a rain-smudged chart affected his extra-point play calling against the Cowboys.

But is Randall Cunningham, reluctant to scramble because of previous injuries, reluctant to be great again?

*

That old man standing alone in the corner? That’s the centerpiece of the losers’ exhibit, one Buddy Ryan, who began the season as the league’s hottest attraction.

He is standing alone because that’s how he stood during a timeout before his Cardinals’ final play Sunday.

His team had a chance to tie the Cowboys with a touchdown. Yet he was five yards from the sideline huddle between offensive coaches and quarterback Steve Beuerlein.

Not only does Ryan not understand the modern offense, he doesn’t care to understand it. His team has no chance to make the playoffs, and the world has stopped listening.

That weeping young man in the other corner? Poor Dave Shula, who has already been whipped on national television by his father, Don, when the Miami Dolphins defeated the Cincinnati Bengals.

He is crying because he is thinking of Christmas Eve in Cincinnati.

This has nothing to do with remembering the day he discovered there was no Santa Claus. After all, as long as Mike Brown does not fire him, Santa Claus is alive and well.

No, Shula is thinking of Christmas Eve as the day his team will lose to the Eagles and set an NFL record with 16 defeats in a season. As in 0-16.

Happy holidays from the worst team in modern history.

The only comparable loser to Ryan and Shula has been Wade Phillips with the Denver Broncos. Over two seasons, nobody has accomplished less with more.

The only question there is not whether owner Pat Bowlen will order the team torn apart and rebuilt. It is whether Elway will want to stick around to watch.

*

The tour of the players’ exhibit begins with a recap of a recent sideline interview with Aikman.

The interviewer was a Cowboy team doctor. Aikman had suffered a blow to the head moments before. The doctor asked Aikman the day, the date and the year.

Aikman missed two of the three questions. But to no one’s surprise, he knew it was Sunday.

Nobody this season has been more sure of Sundays than he.

Aikman has been the best player in the league, so far, not because of his numbers, but because of his nerve, his leadership and his ability to command a championship team that would ultimately fail without him.

Put it this way: He could become the first player to be voted most valuable player and coach of the year.

Oops, look out, there goes another MVP candidate streaking through the exhibit. Barry Sanders of the Detroit Lions could win simply because he is giving the football world goose bumps again.

Well, OK, he doesn’t wow everybody. John Randle and Henry Thomas, Viking defensive tackles, held Sanders to 16 yards in 12 carries in their first meeting.

In the previous week, Sanders had gained 120 yards. In the following week, 194.

Before leaving the exhibit, let us not forget Ben Coates, a tight end for the New England Patriots who is having a better year than that fellow named Jerry Rice.

We will stop by the Montana statue on the way out. When you think he is finished--his Kansas City Chiefs totaled six points in consecutive games--Montana throws five touchdown passes in the next two games.

His retirement is not going to be forced by his knees, but his right arm, which one day will permanently lock into a raised position above his head.

What? You want to visit that dark area over there? You think you see some figures you thought had disappeared?

You must mean quarterback Beuerlein of the Cardinals, victim of the ultimate psych job by his coach.

And look, there’s Erric Pegram, the Atlanta running back.

And my, isn’t that Reggie Cobb, the Green Bay Packer running back and biggest flop of the year?

The next time the Pack wants a back from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they would be better off tracking down Lars Tate.

*

Welcome to the rookies’ wing. Don’t mind that large man running around shouting, “I got a sack! I got a sack! Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah!”

That’s Dan (Big Duddy) Wilkinson of the Bengals, last spring’s No. 1 overall draft pick who has been this fall’s No. 1 overall rookie bust.

He finally got his first sack on Sunday. Soon, perhaps, opponents will even have to start blocking him.

Other busts include Henry Ford, that Edsel of a defensive end for the Oilers. And how about quarterback Heath Shuler of the Redskins?

Talk about blowing your small-town, apple-pie image with arrogance and aversion to hard work!

Not that Trent Dilfer of the Buccaneers has been any peach. In his first NFL start Sunday, he passed for only 24 more yards than the team’s punter.

No rookie has had a more difficult first half, though, than running back Mario Bates of the New Orleans Saints. After a splendid training camp, Bates made the mistake of visiting a bar with fellow running back Lorenzo Neal.

In keeping with the NFL tradition that allows veterans to force rookies into servitude, Neal asked the rookie for a favor. Bates refused.

Neal slugged him, breaking his jaw and forcing him to sit out six weeks.

Next time Mario, five words: Buy the man a drink.

The best rookies are easier to spot. All of them remind you of somebody.

Marshall Faulk, running back for the Indianapolis Colts, is a clone of Thurman Thomas.

Antonio Langham, cornerback for the Browns, does everything like Deion Sanders, except strut.

Bernard Williams, tackle for the Eagles, is another Erik Williams. Without the Mercedes, of course.

*

Our next stop is the new-gadgets exhibit. We will see such things as the two-point conversion and the pregame show from Fox.

Here comes Lonnie Lardner, so we’ll hurry.

The two-point conversion? No effect other than create a new final score of 11-8. No NFL coach has used it to win a game in the final seconds yet, and none will until modern science comes up with a personality transplant.

The changes in the kicking rules? A big hit. Kick returners have become people--Qadry Ismail is suddenly more popular than his older brother Rocket--while kickers have become ornaments.

The renewed enforcement of the no-chucking rule? A big hit with fans who like passing yardage and big receivers who like to push off and not be penalized. Should be renamed, “The Ben Coates Rule.”

Coach to quarterback radio? A resounding flop.

Besides huddles by hopelessly confused officials, has there been a more common on-field sight this year than a quarterback tapping his helmet and shrugging his shoulders because his radio doesn’t work?

The league scoffed at the early report of Matt Rodgers, then quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, picking up an order for sausage pizza in his helmet. When will they realize those problems are real?

The new kids from Fox? Sometimes a hit, other times an embarrassment.

The new NFL network shines when breaking stories, or delivering the honest opinions of Terry Bradshaw and former coach Jimmy Johnson.

It fails by trying to turn the league into a teen magazine.

As when reporters such as Lardner ask quarterbacks such as Aikman whether a woman could ever stop him from playing football.

Or when reporters such as Lardner accompany linebackers such as the Bears’ Joe Cain to the grocery store.

*

Last stop, our futuristic exhibit. No more throwback uniforms. Only throwback football:

--Here are Deion Sanders and Andre Rison engaging in another Sunday afternoon fistfight during Week 9. Not until the police arrive do they remember that their teams are having byes.

--Here are Reggie White and Sterling Sharpe of the Packers engaging in a Sunday afternoon fistfight during Weeks 10, 11 and 12.

White finally persuades Sharpe to begin caring more about the team than himself. Sharpe convinces White that he doesn’t talk to the media because he doesn’t have anything to say. Convinces him in one sentence.

--Here are the Chargers hitting rock bottom with a loss to the Raiders on Monday night of Week 14. The highlight of the game occurs when officials untangle a pile of players and discover Winston Moss shaving Stan Humphries’ head.

--Shortly after the Rams play at Tampa Bay in Week 15, the teams board a jumbo jet. The plane stops in St. Louis and the Rams get off. It stops again in Baltimore and the Buccaneers get off. It then flies to the Bahamas with John Shaw giggling all the way.

--The Dallas Cowboys defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XXIX in Miami. Switzer’s first postgame comment is, “What happened?” He then congratulates the Steelers for a fine effort, “particularly that Bradshaw fellow.”

Switzer is voted coach of the year.

And Halas weeps.