BACK UP AS BACKUP : Laufenberg Makes Career Out of Waiting for NFL Quarterbacks to Get Hurt

Jeff Laufenberg, who doubles as Babe Laufenberg’s agent and oldest brother, was sitting at home two Sundays ago, icing the little finger on his right hand.

The pinky was dislocated during a game of catch earlier in the day, having been struck by a football thrown by Babe during a workout at Westchester High.

As Babe and his younger brother, John, continued to work out, Jeff was at home nursing the injury when the phone rang.

It was the San Diego Chargers.

Dan Fouts had torn a ligament in his right knee, and the Chargers were down to one healthy quarterback. Their first call was to Babe, a 25-year-old former Crespi High star who was cut last month by the Washington Redskins.

And just like that, Babe was back in the National Football League.

“I guess it was a good thing he hurt me so I could be there to take the call,” Jeff said.

He was laughing, but it seemed somehow appropriate that Jeff’s injury coincided with Babe’s return to the NFL. The very existence of third-string quarterbacks in the league this season has depended in many cases on somebody getting hurt.

Since the league’s owners voted last winter to lower the roster limit this season from 49 to 45 players, third-string quarterbacks have become an endangered species.

Last season, each of the league’s 28 teams carried three quarterbacks. But when the 1985 season opened last month, 13 teams were carrying only two.

One of those 13 was the Redskins, who chose Jay Schroeder over Laufenberg as Joe Theismann’s backup. Laufenberg had a big second half in a 37-36 exhibition victory over New England (12 of 21 passing for 200 yards), but the next week, in the Redskins’ final preseason game against Tampa Bay, he never left the bench.

Two days later, he was cut.

And Laufenberg, who spent two seasons in Washington without getting into a regular-season game, went back to leading the vagabond lifestyle he led in college, when his career took him to four schools, including Pierce.

The Chargers were the first to offer what Jeff calls an “injury-protection” workout, in which potential signees are given a physical exam, looked over by the coaches and told, basically, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

He had similar tryouts with the Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts and San Francisco 49ers. On Sept. 30, the day he signed with the Chargers, the Raiders called. And he had to cancel a tryout with the Buffalo Bills.

“Vagabond has a negative connotation,” Laufenberg said last week while poring over the Chargers’ playbook during a lunch break at Jack Murphy Stadium. “I’ve moved around, but I’m an opportunist. I go where opportunity knocks.”

The loudest knock was made by the Chargers, who were the first to offer a contract.

Laufenberg came highly recommended by Washington Coach Joe Gibbs, a former Charger assistant. And he had another advantage: Washington’s offense is similar to San Diego’s.

“He was the first guy we got ahold of,” said Ernie Zampase, Charger assistant in charge of the passing game. “We just thought he could make that conversion (to a new offense) more quickly than anyone else. Plus, we liked what we saw in the workout. . . .

“He’s a very intelligent guy. He has throwing ability. He seems like a real tough guy, with a lot of moxie. He’s sort of a take-charge guy.”

But he won’t be given much of a chance to take charge in San Diego--at least for a while. He’s here to back up starter Mark Herrmann and to emulate the opposition’s quarterback in practice.

By the time he’s comfortable running the offense, Fouts may have recovered from the injury that is expected to sideline him for three to six weeks.

And Laufenberg may be back in the unemployment line.

“We’ll have to make a decision at that time depending on what happens with the rest of the ballclub,” Zampase said.

Said Laufenberg, laughing: “Anything can happen. I certainly realize that.”

And how.

Laufenberg, heavily recruited out of Crespi after passing for 1,793 yards as a senior in 1977, turned down offers from USC, Washington and Notre Dame, among others, to sign with Stanford, where he was redshirted as a freshman. Before his second season on the Farm, however, the Cardinal brought in John Elway. Exit Laufenberg, who headed for Missouri.

But Missouri, with Phil Bradley at quarterback, was running a veer offense. And Laufenberg, who didn’t like the school anyway, wasn’t about to adjust to the running game.

He left after one semester, returning to his parents’ home in Canoga Park and planning to start all over again at Pierce.

He threw for more than 1,600 yards at Pierce in 1980, signed with Indiana and finally settled in for two seasons in Bloomington. As a senior, he set a Hoosier record for passing yards (2,468).

The Redskins drafted him in the sixth round of the 1983 draft.

But he never played.

Theismann, he said, never wanted to come out of a game.

“Jim Hart was there last year and they went to put him in at the end of the Giant game,” Laufenberg said. “We were getting killed. But Theismann got (upset) and said, ‘I’m finishing up.’ And they kept him in. . . .

“The whole thing back there was a little weird. . . . I liked being back there. I like living there. I liked the guys. I knew the system. I wouldn’t say I was glad to get out of there, but if your future is better served somewhere else. . . .

“It’s the nature of the business that you go where the opportunity is. It’s not like other jobs where your abilities are going to shine through. If you’re an accountant, they hire 15 or 30 accountants and the cream kind of rises to the top. But on a football team, only one guy can play quarterback, so it’s a little bit different.”

Laufenberg spent the 1983 season on the bench behind Theismann and Bob Holly. He spent last season on the injured-reserve list after straining his right shoulder during the exhibition season.

Still, he had enough confidence that the Redskins would keep him that he bought a house last spring in Falls Church, Va.

The kiss of death?

“Definitely,” said Laufenberg, laughing. “I should have told them I was just renting. . . . They must go through the real estate listings and if they see your name come up on the computer that you’ve bought a house, you’re gone.”

Actually, the Redskins just believed they had to make a choice between Schroeder and Laufenberg, and they chose Schroeder.

Laufenberg was disappointed, but not discouraged.

He was confident that another team would come knocking.

“Babe’s always had a lot of self-confidence,” said Jeff, his brother. “It was never a kind of thing where anybody had to work on him to keep his spirits up. . . .

“Fortunately, there have been the phone calls coming in, albeit for what I call injury-protection workouts, but as long as teams are interested. . . .

“Today’s offensive coordinator is tomorrow’s head coach somewhere else and maybe somebody sees something they like. As long as they’re calling you, and as long as you’re on their list, that’s enough to keep your spirits up.”

Laufenberg didn’t play last Sunday in the Chargers’ 26-21 loss at Seattle, and his future with the Chargers is uncertain, but he believes that someday, somewhere, he’ll get his chance.

“I really thought that this year I had been coming along pretty well, really progressing,” he said. “Of course, preseason isn’t like the regular season, but I’ve done well every time I’ve been given a chance. I just need that test. I don’t have any doubts that I can do it.”