Although the Former Charger Wide Receiver Is 29, Without a Team and Unable to Understand Why . . . : John Jefferson Believes He Can Catch Fire Again

As he jogs near his residence in suburban Dallas, only a mile from the Cowboys’ complex, he has ample time to ponder the chain of events that brought him home early this fall.

“It’s different being here this time of year,” John Jefferson said. “Friends ask what you’re doing. It doesn’t feel so good.

“I try not to show it, because that’s not going to change anything. But there’s no doubt I’ve got the incentive to be an All-Pro again. I want it so bad. I want to put a good light on the end of my career. I sure do want to straighten this thing out before I retire.”

This thing has got a lot of people confused.

Two years ago, Jefferson was a Pro Bowl-caliber pass catcher. Now, at 29, he is without a job--and without a simple explanation for how it came to this. There is no suspicion of drug involvement, according to several pro football insiders, but, beyond that, there is no consensus on whether it’s his desire, his skills or both that have faded so swiftly.

Jefferson has a list of eight teams he will consider for future employment, among them the Dallas Cowboys, the San Diego Chargers, the San Francisco 49ers, and maybe the Arizona Outlaws, one of the teams still clinging to life in the United States Football League. Interest in him seems lukewarm at best but could intensify in the spring as teams reassess their needs and budgets.

As Jefferson has found, trying to shape destiny can be tricky. A contract rich in incentives would have to be drawn up, and a new offense assimilated. Dollars are important, but maybe not the overriding consideration anymore.

There is a certain irony in the path that has led him back to Dallas, where he was a high school star in the early 1970s.

During his senior year at Arizona State, Jefferson learned that the Green Bay Packers were considering drafting him. Unmoved by the ghost of Lombardi, and dismayed by the prospect of running post patterns in the snow, he appealed to his coach, Frank Kush, to call the Packers’ Bart Starr and persuade him to draft someone else.

Kush agreed, provided that Jefferson would speak to Starr. The strategy worked, sort of.

Jefferson wound up being selected by the San Diego Chargers, for whom he played three years, twice leading the NFL in touchdown receptions and becoming one of the most popular athletes in the city’s history. He became the first NFL receiver to surpass 1,000 yards receiving in each of his first three seasons.

Hoping to cash in with a renegotiated contract, his agent, Howard Slusher, got into a holdout struggle with Eugene Klein, then the owner of the Chargers. The dispute ended with Jefferson’s being traded to the Packers, and this time there was no Kush to intervene.

Jefferson spent four bittersweet years in Green Bay before playing out his option and eventually winding up in Cleveland this season for a span of eight forgettable games in which he caught only three passes. The Browns cut him last month, and Jefferson, a man with a carefree exterior masking a deep reservoir of pride, repaired to his home in Dallas to nurse his ego and reshape his future.

The 19th-Century notion of entropy--the idea that the universe is gradually running out of energy--seems to fit Jefferson as snugly as a pair of the protective goggles that once were his trademark.

He enjoyed three banner seasons with the Chargers from 1978 through 1981, with reception totals of 56, 61 and 82. He led the NFL in touchdown catches twice.

His first two years in Green Bay, where James Lofton was ensconced as the deep threat, Jefferson’s totals dipped to 39 and 27. Even so, his willingness to run routes across the middle and his bubbly spirit made him an instant team leader. He recovered with 57 catches in 1983, but in his option year, 1984, Jefferson caught only 26 passes catches before his exodus.

His anemic production with the Browns this season wouldn’t constitute even a bad game in years past.

Still, it’s hard to find anyone willing to completely dismiss his future.

“I see John frequently, and he looks lean and trim, probably the best condition I’ve ever seen him,” said Gil Brandt, chief scout for the Dallas Cowboys. “My feeling is that he wants to put this year out of his mind and get a fresh start.

“He has so much pride. He’s really been hurt by being cut by the Browns. He looks bright-eyed and determined to prove all his critics wrong. I’m really impressed and I’d be interested in him (for next season).”

Charlie Joiner, a former teammate in San Diego and still one of his closest friends, said that Jefferson was shocked by his sudden dismissal in Cleveland.

“He’s hurting right now,” Joiner said. “He’ll keep it inside, because he’s such a happy-go-lucky guy. The thing for JJ is to be mentally ready right now. I believe somebody will get him. He’s just too young to retire. He can still play in this league.”

A comeback won’t be easy, though, according to San Diego quarterback Dan Fouts.

“JJ’s got to be willing to start all over,” he said. “He has to be willing to accept whatever comes along. He’ll probably never find another system like he had in San Diego.”

The Chargers would have little or no interest in bringing back Jefferson, according to Ron Nay, chief scout and adviser to owner Alex Spanos. “Things can change, but right now there’s no place for him,” Nay said. “I don’t know how fast he is anymore, and I don’t know where he would fit into our team.”

Jefferson’s decline apparently was more related to incompatibility with the Packer and Brown offenses than to any other single factor.

By his own account, Jefferson had differences with a member of the Packer coaching staff whom he didn’t name. “I just had to get out,” he said.

Kush, who has stayed close to Jefferson through the years and is now coaching the Outlaws, said that Jefferson’s problems were with Lew Carpenter, the Green Bay receiver coach under both Starr and Forrest Gregg, who replaced Starr after the 1983 season.

“He didn’t think John had enough speed,” Kush said. “Well, John’s never been a sprinter. But he knows how to get open and he’s a great possession receiver. He just didn’t fit into Lew’s system, I guess.”

Carpenter said otherwise.

“If he had a conflict, I don’t know who he meant,” Carpenter said. “I worked with him every day and never knew of any conflict. The problem he had here was mental. He still has a lot of talent left, and if he works hard he can still be a fine player. It’s just a matter of getting ready in his own mind.”

Joiner pointed out, however, that the Packer passing game was geared to Lofton. “The quality plays went to Lofton,” he said.

Jefferson left Green Bay as the No. 12 receiver in Packer history with 149 receptions.

He also left without another destination clearly in mind. The Cleveland Browns eventually met his asking price, about $400,000 for a one-year deal, but his absence from training camp exacted a price of its own.

Joiner said: “The worst situation for a receiver is going to a team you haven’t worked with in camp and you don’t know their quarterback or their system. It’s hard to be adequate when you’re not in the swing of things and you haven’t had the chance to get your timing down with the quarterback.”

The Browns envisioned Jefferson strictly as a role player and an example for their young receivers, according to Ernie Accorsi, the team’s executive vice president.

“We were not expecting miracles,” Accorsi said. “We were hoping he could give us a couple of good years, but it didn’t work out. There’s no deep secret. Maybe we didn’t get the ball to him in the right patterns. We cut him because we wanted to activate a young receiver (Freddie Banks), not because we saw John as a complete failure.”

There is another dimension to Jefferson’s decline, as Kush sees it. Greed is part of it, and so is the failure to perceive the importance of personal chemistry. Kush dumped the blame in the lap of Howard Slusher, one of the most criticized and successful agents in professional sports.

“John was a victim of what transpires in the NFL when an agent is more concerned about money than the personality of a player and team,” Kush said. “There is more to it than just making a buck. I’m talking about chemistry and cohesiveness.

“John needs to be in an environment where he’s comfortable, and San Diego was ideal for him. He had the right chemistry there.”

There’s no question Jefferson enjoyed a special place in the Charger offense, alongside Joiner and Kellen Winslow, the other chief targets of Fouts’ prolific right arm. He also had a special place in the feelings of Charger backers, who responded wildly to the sight of Jefferson running onto the field, jumping and waving a white towel.

Although Fouts categorically rejected Kush’s argument that Slusher was the undoing of all this, he acknowledged the warm feelings engendered by Jefferson.

“I have very pleasant memories of those years,” Fouts said. “There was great excitement in the air. JJ was the first real superstar I played with in the mature part of my career. He could infect a team and a stadium with his enthusiasm.

“He arrived in San Diego at the same time as our coach, Don Coryell. So it was all coming together at the same point in time--a great offensive scheme and great personnel. As far as I’m concerned, it was just the best of times.”

Al Saunders, the Chargers’ current receiver coach, views Jefferson’s fall with detachment. He wasn’t here in the glory years, so it’s easier for him to judge.

“A player’s success can be proportional to the type of offense he’s in,” Saunders said. “The San Diego offense spreads the wealth around, then and now. Most teams have one or two dominant receivers in their scheme and don’t have the capability to distribute the ball to three or more receivers. It’s easier for a defense to take away one or two primary receivers when that’s the case.”

There seems no question that Jefferson must pick his next team with care, as far as that’s possible for an unemployed receiver who’s nearing 30 and is used to making a healthy salary.

There is a chance he could price himself out of business, in Brandt’s estimation. Jefferson’s next contract would likely be based on incentives: If he plays and starts, one figure; if he catches a certain number of passes, a higher figure; if his team makes the playoffs, more rewards.

There is some doubt, though, how Jefferson would react to such incentives. His San Diego contract was dotted with them, and he hated their existence.

“The incentives nearly destroyed me,” he said after he had been traded to the Packers in 1981. “I worried about money so much. I worried about how many balls Charlie and Kellen were catching. I had to be a statistician as well as a football player.”

Kush, who said he would be interested in signing Jefferson, believes the player has the tenacity to make a comeback.

“He’s never been a pouter,” Kush said. “He doesn’t impose his hardships on other people. He never came to me with any problems, like some players. He’d try to resolve everything by himself.”

Jefferson’s approach seems a blend of the stoic and the carefree. “I just take the good feelings from the past and try to keep those,” he said. “I think I’m pretty much the same person I always was. I still have my sense of humor.”

He wonders how his career might have turned out had he remained in San Diego, particularly when he ponders Joiner’s success. Joiner has caught more passes than any other receiver in history, most of them since coming to San Diego in 1976. Jefferson thinks about what might have been.

“There’s a good chance I could have had a Hall of Fame career in San Diego, but I really don’t feel too bad about it,” Jefferson said. “In my travels, I have learned the truth of something my good friend Lester Hayes once said, that Dan Fouts made all those receivers in San Diego. If the man don’t throw ‘em, you can’t catch ‘em. I’ve missed that system. It’s just not the same anywhere else I’ve been.”

Jefferson is optimistic, at least outwardly.

“I can still do the same things I always could,” he said. “A lot of teams say I’m not a world-class sprinter, but I believe there are a lot of teams that could use a receiver of my talent, who can average 16 or 17 yards a catch.”

After leaving the Chargers four years ago, Jefferson seemed to have a pretty good handle on himself and whatever the future would bring.

“I’m going to play as long as I can, but I’m not going to get shoved around,” he said at the time. “I won’t show up just to be on the sidelines. Can’t be in no man’s freak show.”