Kellen Winslow--Still on Road Back After the Fall

Kellen Winslow is the model of the sensitive superstar, equal parts fragile and fierce. Give him a seam in the middle of a zone, he’ll give you first and 10. Don’t give him the ball six or seven times a game, he’ll turn--as one club official put it--into a pouting “Sonja Henie, prima ballerina type.”

The way Winslow figures it, you reach the top of your profession and “you brace yourself for the blows.” He twice had 88 catches in a season; he had 89 in a season once; he was the league’s most productive receiver with 374 catches between 1980-84; and he once burned the Raiders with five touchdown catches in a 1981 game.

Raiders cornerback Lester Hayes said: “When he’s healthy, there’s no one better over the past half a century--before that, maybe Knute Rockne or Jim Thorpe.” The Pro Football Hall of Fame voted Winslow to the AFL-NFL First 25-Year Team (1960-84) and Miami’s Don Shula said “he does it all, climbs the highest buildings.”

Can anyone forget Winslow’s Goliath performance in the 41-38 overtime win in the playoffs over Miami in January 1982? He had 13 catches for 166 yards. He blocked a field goal in the waning moments of regulation to force overtime. Finally, following the game-winning field goal, he was helped from the bottom of the pile at the line of scrimmage, his whole body cramped in pain, and was given shoulder-to-shoulder help off the field by two teammates.

All the while, the cameras were rolling. His legacy was set.

Ask him about this landmark game, The Game That Put Kellen Winslow On The Map, and Winslow coyly will say, “You mean that touch football game in Tijuana when the police came and we had to run back over the border?” Then, he’ll return to business and tell you how his friends still make him slide the videotape of that game into his home VCR for re-living and rejoicing.

From a different perspective, Winslow said, “But you can also say that game is an albatross around my neck. What am I going to do to top that? I suppose I could probably throw a pass downfield and catch it.”

Now Winslow, who turns 30 next year, is trying to return to his former place among the most dominant players in the NFL. He knows his place in history: “I’ve caught 424 passes,” he said, “not counting playoffs.”

Winslow had 55 receptions in seven games in 1984 (a record 126-catch pace for a full season) when Raider linebacker Jeff Barnes shredded Winslow’s dominance and two ligaments in his knee with one definitive blow.

Winslow spent from October 1984 to October 1985 in rehabilitation. He paused along the way to “wonder if it is all worthwhile.” Many wondered, including Winslow, if his career might be over. Winslow came back walking and talking gingerly. He made statements during training camp last year that just maybe the Chargers would be better off not reactivating him that season because “why risk a commodity like that?”

The commodity was Kellen Winslow. Of course, the organization responded ruefully, viewing Winslow’s comments as self-serving.

Winslow at last returned to the Chargers lineup in Week 7 last season. He had expectations, if not optimum acceleration. However, the Chargers had found new weapons in Winslow’s absence. Sure, the mad-gunning quarterback Dan Fouts was still there, and in all-pro form no less. Now, though, Fouts was looking to such new weapons as running backs Lionel James (86 catches) and Gary Anderson. Tight ends Eric Sievers and Pete Holohan were near-clones, catching 41 and 42 passes apiece last season.

Winslow caught just 25 passes in 10 games. Too often, he felt, he was being used as a blocker and-or a decoy. Normally, Winslow catches 25 passes in three games. Naturally, he was confused. “When I came back,” he said, “I felt like I was treated like I wasn’t even there or like I was a malingerer.”

He participated in just three plays in his third game back, against Denver, and said he never left the line of scrimmage. The next day, a working Monday, Winslow opted to go to Canada for one day to promote a soft drink. He returned Tuesday, but was fined $1,000 by the Chargers.

It was suggested by some that Winslow’s ego had forced his ability to reason into submission. Others said he was living off The Miami Game, three years later.

“(The situation) forced us into a confrontation, to sit down and talk,” Winslow said. He spoke with Coach Don Coryell and receivers coach Al Saunders. Winslow said: “I wanted to catch the ball (but) I accepted the role they wanted me to play the rest of the year and just went on.”

“Last year was a necessary evil. I had high expectations coming back and I never fulfilled them. Coming back was a big deal to me. It was a misunderstanding between the coaches and me. (I’m) a four-time all-pro; I think several times I’ve gone beyond the call of duty; I had been here for seven years. I had no gripes with Eric Sievers or Pete Holohan. But nobody bothered telling me that I wasn’t going to play when I came back. That’s where I felt betrayed.”

So now Winslow returns in 1986 figuring “before I had to catch 89 passes for us to get the ball up and down the field. Now, I can produce 50 to 55 catches and still feel like I’m a contributing member of this offense. I don’t think 89 to 95 receptions is required of me any more, which is a blessing in disguise.

“For those who think that I am a malingerer or didn’t want to play any more, I could have very easily sat back and not rehabilitated my knee and it wouldn’t have changed my paycheck a bit because of the insurance policy (with Lloyd’s of London, regarding career-ending injury). I enjoy playing the game.”

Coryell’s eyes light up when he is asked about the importance of Winslow’s return. “He is so huge and strong,” he says of the agile 6-foot-5, 242-pound player, “that he can move through linebackers. He makes defenses focus on him.”

Winslow relishes the chance to work with Fouts again. He recalled once “there were 55,000 people in the stands, I looked over to Dan at the line of scrimmage and went ‘Psst!’ Dan heard me and I got the ball.”

Chances are, there’s plenty more where that one came from. “I’m convinced I can come back and play to 90 to 95% of my ability,” Winslow said, “which I think is pretty good.”