Mathison Returns With No Grudges and a Starting Job

He has only been gone a couple of months, but he already has three times more experience than he had before he left. And if he has proven nothing else, it’s that common sense is nearly as important to a quarterback as experience.

Bruce Mathison left town in a state of uncertainty, with only a pair of jeans, a shirt and an overnight kit. More important, he left without a grudge to distract him from the business at hand.

A couple of days after learning that Mark Herrmann had beaten him out for the Chargers’ backup quarterback job, Mathison found himself on a plane to Buffalo, where a tryout awaited him. He had served a two-year apprenticeship here, and had gone through most of the preseason as the heir apparent to Ed Luther as San Diego’s No. 2 quarterback.

Although Mathison lost the job at the last minute to a man who probably knew considerably less about the Chargers’ offense, he was able to put any feelings of bitterness out of mind.

Buffalo may not be Camelot, but Mathison will take it. Sunday he returns to San Diego as the Bills’ starting quarterback.

He returns with a sense of anticipation--but no animosity, he says. It would be unlike Mathison to express it, even if he felt it. And he might not have succeeded in his Buffalo trial if he had been boiling with resentment.

That’s not to say he wouldn’t relish pulling an Oliver Luck and knocking off the Chargers, just as Houston’s equally inexperienced quarterback did last Sunday.

“Sure, it would give me a lot of satisfaction to beat ‘em,” Mathison said. “My foot’s tapping in anticipation. You’ll have to drag me off the field. But there’s no bitterness. What happened was out of my hands.

“It might have been just the thing I needed to get me going. You can’t take things for granted. You gotta really work at it. I don’t know if I took anything for granted there. I do know being at San Diego taught me how to throw and how to take control of a ballclub. I learned a ton.”

Mathison was ready when Hank Bullough, Buffalo coach, benched Vince Ferragamo and awarded the starting job to him three games ago. Since taking over, Mathison has completed 41 of 80 passes for 494 yards and 2 touchdowns. He has been intercepted twice and sacked 11 times. He has carried the ball nine times for 100 yards and a touchdown.

In a 23-14 loss to Miami last Sunday, he threw for 196 yards and two touchdowns. “He had some great efforts,” Don Shula, Miami coach, said. “He did some scrambling and was impressive. He was able to take what looked like a busted play and turn it into a touchdown.”

Shula referred to a play in which Mathison evaded the Dolphin rush and hit Jerry Butler on a 60-yard scoring play.

He wasn’t known for his running ability during his tenure with the Chargers--most of his time was spent emulating opposing quarterbacks and throwing pass after pass against the San Diego defense for the scout team. Mathison’s education as a runner had come at Nebraska, where he was an understudy for four years.

The thing about Mathison is, nobody really knows what he can do, and that includes Mathison. He is so inexperienced, you can’t be too surprised by anything he does. He started a couple of games as a high school senior, but then went nine years before his next starting opportunity, a preseason game last summer.

A bad afternoon against the San Francisco 49ers in his third exhibition start caused the Chargers to have their doubts about him. In the season’s final preseason game, Herrmann dislodged Mathison on the basis of an impressive second-half showing against the New Orleans Saints.

With little time for that unhappy development to get him down, Mathison went to Buffalo not knowing what to expect. But he showed enough during the course of a drizzly workout to merit a place on the roster.

And then life evened the score. He became the Buffalo starter.

“This job was placed in my lap,” he said Wednesday. “I didn’t expect to come here and win the job. I didn’t even expect to stay. They had a couple of quarterbacks here.

“After I was cut by the Chargers, I didn’t have time to wonder what I’d do. I just had a couple of days off. There were a lot of calls from friends. Even Ed Luther called and told me to hang in there.”

“Pressure? I don’t think about it. We’re not going anywhere, we know that. We’re just trying to win some games. My contract is up after this year, and I’ll just see what happens.”

The Bills have an interest in acquiring a quarterback named Jim Kelly, who’s just about the last superstar left in the USFL. Mathison didn’t spend a couple of years in the company of Dan Fouts without learning a few things about how to relate to a potentially uncomfortable situation.

“Jim Kelly? I get asked every day,” Mathison said. “I don’t think about it. I don’t care. I have the opportunity to play and run an offense right now. I can’t control anything else. I’m giving it my best shot.”

Don Coryell, San Diego coach, seems genuinely pleased by Mathison’s good fortune in Buffalo.

“We’re proud and happy he’s done so well,” Coryell said. “He has all the skills, great potential. We had to make a choice between him and Mark, and we don’t think we made a mistake, but that doesn’t mean Bruce won’t be a fine player. We wish him well . . . just not this Sunday.”