Moon Is Happy to Be in the NFL

To the onlookers off in the distance, they were just 100 plain, old, boring, run-of-the-mill situps, just like the ones Warren Moon always cranks out after practice.

But to Moon, they were much more than that. To him, they symbolized something. They were more than just situps because, while he was sitting down, nobody else stood up and took notice. If, after 80 or 90, he was grunting and groaning a little, the world will never know.

A handful of microphones weren’t perched under his chin to record the moment, pens didn’t fly across notepads, cameramen didn’t grapple for space in front of him.

And for that, Warren Moon is a happy man.

“I was never able to do anything like that last year,” he said, “because there were always a lot of people waiting for me after practice.”

Oh, there were people waiting for him all right, after the Houston Oilers finished their morning workout Thursday at the Denver Broncos training camp. But it was nothing like last year.

Last year, he was treated a lot differently than the other Oilers. But that was understandable. He was a lot different. Not only from the other Oilers but from the other players in the league. Moon, it seems, told the NFL what team he wanted to play for, not vice versa.

Because he was never drafted by an NFL team after his playing days at the University of Washington, Moon had his choice of what team he wanted to play for, and Lord knows, after his play at quarterback helped the Edmonton Eskimos win five consecutive Grey Cups from 1978-82, there were a lot of teams that wanted him.

There were the Giants, the Buccaneers, the Raiders, the Seahawks and the Oilers. The bidding started at about $500,000 a year, and ended up at more than $1 million -- $5.5 million for five years to be exact.

“Being a free agent at a time in football when there really wasn’t any free agency, I was kind of a freak, I guess,” Moon said. “From the time I decided to be a free agent, it all kind of built up. The media got a hold of it and it built from there.

The fact that he was a free agent in a game that knows no such thing was only part of the media’s attraction to him. Warren Moon, for those of you without a program, is black. And talented. And playing quarterback in a league that historically has included precious few black quarterbacks.

How good is he? Oilers coach Hugh Campbell, who coached Moon at Edmonton during each of the Grey Cup years, thinks he already belongs in the top echelon of NFL quarterbacks.

“He’s as good as there is,” Campbell said. “He’s in the top third or so. He’s just like (John) Elway. If you had to take a quarterback, a lot of coaches would take him.”

In his first year with the Oilers, Moon was good (259-450, 3,338 yards, 12 TDs), but this year he can’t help but be better.

“Last year,” said Campbell, “he was new. We all were, the players, the coaches, everybody. We didn’t even know which receivers we were going to use.

“Now, he’s had a year to digest everything. He’ll struggle some, but I think it will be a lot easier for him.”

Already, it has been. The media has flocked not to Moon during the first two weeks of camp, but to Mike Rozier, the USFL refugee and former Heisman Trophy winner. And nothing could make Moon happier.

“After last year,” he said, “there really doesn’t seem like there’s much people need to know about me. They kind of found out everything about me last year.

“Now, I just happen to be one of the guys on the team who’s the quarterback. I’m going to get a lot of questions asked because that’s my position, but that’s the part I’m used to -- answering questions about football. I like talking about football. That’s what I’m here for.”