No Matter How You Look at It, This Is an Off-Season for Craig : Roger Craig and Craig James Among Slumping NFL Stars

Has The Refrigerator been unplugged? Has Boomer lost his explosiveness? Does carrying the name Craig--as in Roger or James--mean not carrying or catching the football so well anymore?

What has happened to some of the big names in the NFL, players who had major impacts on their teams last year, but this season have either disappeared or disappointed?

The names read like an All-Pro list, starting with Jim McMahon, the Chicago Bears’ outrageous and outstanding quarterback who has been plagued by shoulder problems all season. It extends to William Perry, the Bears’ media phenom last season who may have eaten his way out of stardom.

Just as with McMahon, injuries have been a factor in many of the slumps being suffered by 1985 stars. San Francisco’s Roger Craig and New England’s Craig James, two of the most versatile running backs in the league, have been slowed by injuries. So has Seattle safety Kenny Easley, who won’t play again this year after needing surgery for bone spurs in his ankle. And New York Jets defensive end Mark Gastineau, who tore up a knee last Sunday and won’t be back until the playoffs, if then. Prior to the knee, Gastineau was slowed by an abdominal injury that limited the perennial leader in sacks to just two quarterback traps.

“I haven’t been 100 percent,” said Craig, who became the first NFL player to rush and receive for more than 1,000 yards each last season. “I know I haven’t been as effective as last year because of (a strained hip muscle). If I start worrying about the hip and change my attitude, it’s only going to hurt the team.”

Craig also has been limited by the loss of QB Joe Montana, who was idled for eight weeks with back surgery. Jeff Kemp, Montana’s replacement, threw more to his wide receivers than to his backs, and with the emergence of wideout Jerry Rice as the game’s most dangerous deep receiver, Craig’s role has been curtailed.

“I think having Joe back will balance the whole offense,” said Craig, who has 400 yards rushing on 101 attempts and 367 receiving on 47 catches this year; last season, it was 719 on 134 runs and 757 on 64 catches at this time. “By this time of year, I usually get going, turn it on.”

His counterpart in New England, Craig James, hasn’t had any better a season. The whole New England rushing game has ground to a halt, ranking 24th in the league through 11 weeks. Last year, led by James’ 1,227 yards and 657 by Tony Collins, the Patriots were sixth in rushing.

“For a while, I was not frustrated but impatient,” said James, who has suffered this year while his backfield buddy from Southern Methodist, Eric Dickerson, has been on a record rushing pace. “But we’re scoring a lot of points, we’re leading the league.”

James is 19th in the AFC with 329 yards, two fewer than Collins.

“We try to kid our way out of it a lot,” Collins said. “It’s especially hard on Craig, having an All-Star year last year and now having something like 300 yards going into the 12th game. . . . It’s probably more rough on him than it is on me.

“We kid about it, but I know deep down inside it bothers me because I want him to do well.”

Another slumper this year has been Cincinnati quarterback Boomer Esiason. The strong left-hander ranked second to the Jets’ Ken O’Brien among NFL passers last season. But as O’Brien has surged this season, Esiason had slipped. He is seventh in the AFC and ninth overall and his 12 interceptions this year are as many as he had in all of ’85.

Other offensive forces who have been much less forceful this season are Kevin Mack and Earnest Byner, the 1,000-yard rushing twins from Cleveland who have been ravaged by injuries and suffered without each other; Giant quarterback Phil Simms, whose best receivers have spent more time on injured reserve than on the field, which partly accounts for his erratic performances; Butch Woolfolk of Houston, an 80-reception man last year who has only 28 in 1986; and Steeler placekicker Gary Anderson, the AFC’s top scorer last year with 139 points. He has 53 so far.

Sometimes the collapse of an entire team makes a quality player look vulnerable. Indianapolis cornerback Eugene Daniel falls into that category.

“Last year, I had eight interceptions and I considered I had a pretty good year,” sad Daniel, who tied with Kansas City’s Albert Lewis for the AFC lead. “This year, things turned out a little bit different.”

He has two interceptions so far, and the Colts are the only winless team in the NFL.

“I’ve had some plays, some things that happened I need to touch up on,” Daniel said. “They haven’t been throwing the ball that much on my side.”

Daniel doesn’t seem concerned by his drop in production as much as the disastrous collapse of the Colts.

“So far as the win-loss column, there is a big difference,” he said. “I mean, we only won five games last year, but none this year. We’re here to perform, paid to perform and nobody likes to get beat. With that in mind, that’s enough to get psyched up. You don’t want to go out there and have yourself look like a fool.”

No one would ever accuse the 300-pound Perry of looking like a fool, at least not to his face.

Perry, a defensive lineman and sometime fullback, was a media darling last year, but not because of his pass rushing or run-stopping. When Bears Coach Mike Ditka placed him in the backfield and he rumbled over opponents to clear the way for Walter Payton touchdowns, Perry became a celebrity. When Ditka allowed Perry to carry the ball and he scored a touchdown, the legend of The Refrigerator was assured.

This year, Perry reported to training camp vastly overweight and still has not collected on any of the bonuses in his contract for keeping his weight to 308 pounds. (Some say he is pushing 340). Perry is been bothered by a leg injury and Ditka refused to use him in the backfield until last week, when he was a decoy on a short yardage play.

“I’ll use him on offense again when he gets his weight down and regains his quickness,” Ditka said. “In all fairness to him, he has been injured and he’s playing well on defense.”

Perry has started every game and is seventh on the team with 52 tackles and fifth in sacks with four. But he no longer is the biggest celebrity in the NFL.

“I’m doing my best,” Perry said. “I’m doing all right.”

But, like Esiason and Craig and James and Daniel, things could be a lot better.