Pro Football / Bob Oates : Testaverde, Bennett Lead Class of 1987

Vinny Testaverde and Cornelius Bennett will be the first two college football players drafted by the pros next spring, most scouts have been saying.

But in the view of Gil Brandt, vice president of the Dallas Cowboys, there’s one if.

“As good as those two are, they’ll only (be drafted first) if they play as well this year as they’ve been playing,” Brandt said. “NFL coaches hate to take a chance on guys who tail off in their senior season.”

Testaverde is the quarterback at the University of Miami, and Bennett is an Alabama linebacker. And, Brandt said, which one you prefer depends on your needs.

Starting their fifth year in Los Angeles, the Raiders would like to extend the kind of streak that is possibly the most difficult for a sports team to maintain.

They and the Miami Dolphins are the only two teams that have made the NFL playoffs in all four seasons that the Raiders have played in the Coliseum.

Years ago, Bud Grant, the on-again, off-again coach of the Minnesota Vikings, started something that his successors haven’t been able to, or haven’t wished to, amend.

Maintaining that the football season is much too long, Grant invariably delayed the start of training camp until the end of July.

Again this summer, some NFL players will have been in camp three weeks before the Vikings become the last to report July 28.

This year’s good starter at Minnesota is Jerry Burns, who at 59 will be the oldest new head coach in the league when he calls the Vikings in next week.

An eccentric team in recent years, the Vikings two years ago were led by the youngest head coach in the league, 38-year-old Les Steckel.

Burns is an old Viking warhorse who, after an undistinguished Big Ten tour at Iowa and a two-year stint as an assistant with the Green Bay Packers, has been at Minnesota since 1968, most recently as offensive coordinator.

Thirty of his 35 years as a coach have been spent in press boxes advising coaches and players on the field.