Clark Goes From Goat to Gloat : Redskin Receiver Atones for Gaffes With Final 2 Catches

Gary Clark held the football close to his jean jacket. This ball was grimy and full of dirt and partially torn, but he tucked it under his arm, eluded a reporter or two and carried it out the locker room door.

“Game ball,” he said as he was leaving.

For in a span of 44 seconds on Sunday, the Washington Redskin receiver went from goat to gloat. Early in the third quarter, he dropped a touchdown pass. Late in the fourth, he fumbled on the Charger 24-yard line. Game ball? Goof ball.

And as he stood there after the fumble on the Redskin sideline--staring at his toes--a young quarterback named Jay Schroeder walked up to say: “Hey, Gary, let’s make the big play to win the game.”

Clark, who’s 5-feet-9 but who felt about 2-foot-6, looked up and thought this was a pretty good idea, but the Redskins had to get the football back again. They trailed, 27-23. There were just over two minutes left. They had no timeouts. It was third and 10 for the Chargers.

If San Diego gets that first down? “I’m the goat, no question,” Clark said.

As the Redskin defense broke from its huddle, cornerback Darrell Green slapped 10 with safety Ken Coffey. Seconds later, Green leaped across the field to slap the ball away from receiver Trumaine Johnson.

So the Redskins fielded a Charger punt and started on their own 31 with two minutes left. And 44 seconds later, Clark’s in the end zone. On second down, he ran an “up and out” down the right sideline (really, it’s just your typical bomb). Now, the Redskins didn’t have to go deep all at once, but Charger cornerback Wayne Davis was playing bump-and-run defense. That means Clark is supposed to avoid this bump and run deep. He did. Schroeder hit him.

This brought the ball to the Charger 14-yard line, but the clock still ran and the Redskins did without a huddle. Clark lined up and just assumed that Schroeder would be throwing the ball out of bounds, but Schroeder began barking signals.

Clark couldn’t hear. “What? What?” he was saying to himself. He somehow heard Schroeder say “10!” and thought that meant there was a “10-man front.” But what Schroeder had said was “Charley! 10! Hitch!” which doesn’t mean there’s a 10-man front.

Anyway, the ball was snapped and Clark did the only sensible thing--get open. Schroeder said he was looking at Clark to cut to the sideline or to turn in, but he was going to throw the ball away if Clark was covered.

Clark turned in and the ball was thrown low, but he caught it and Redskin players turned into one giant Fun Bunch--congrats for everyone. Defensive end Dexter Manley, who had had a running conversation all day with some guys in the front row, turned around and said: “I told you so!”

Manley, who speaks pretty highly of himself (“I had two sacks, man”), spoke pretty highly of Clark, too.

“You make mistakes like he did, man, you gotta forget, and fortunately he did,” Manley said. “You can’t let it get you down, man. It’s over. The richest man in the world can’t change it.”

Schroeder might be pretty rich pretty soon. With him as quarterback, the Redskins are 8-1. He threw for 341 yards Sunday, yet he was your average everyday Jay. He was hardly spectacular. On the first Redskin possession of the day, he overthrew a wide-open Clark in the end zone. He had two interceptions dropped. He threw 20 incompletions. He had two passes batted away. As the holder, he made kicker Mark Moseley kick twice off the laces.

But he’s “Big Play Jay.” His 341 yards came in 16 completions (that’s 21 yards per reception). He had completions of 58 and 51 yards to Art Monk and that 55 yarder to Clark in the end.

Sonny Jurgensen, that old Redskin quarterback who now announces their games on radio, was telling Schroeder afterward: “How do you do that? How do you throw it in the hands of the defensive backs and make them drop it? I wish I’d been able to do that.”

Later asked to assess Schroeder, Jurgensen, a Hall of Famer, said: “I think he made the plays when he had to. That’s the sign of a great quarterback. Two minutes left? That’s when quarterbacking is fun. But I kidded him. I told Jay he had too much time left. He should’ve had a minute left to drive them instead of two. I used to do it in one.”

For a while there in the first half, the Chargers were scoring every minute. On one play, running back Gary Anderson faked linebacker Rich Milot with the simple pitter-patter of his very quick feet and scored a touchdown.

“He’s probably the best all-purpose back in the NFL,” Manley said of Anderson. “Personally, I think he has more moves than Roger Craig or Marcus Allen, not to take anything away from them.”

In the meantime, running back George Rogers (87 yards) became useless when the Redskins fell behind--21-3 at one point. Washington, under Joe Gibbs, had never won a game when they trailed by as many as 18 points, but Schroeder combined with Clark, who by game’s end felt 10-feet tall.