AS QUARTERBACKS CAN TESTIFY . . . : Giants Are Hazardous to a Passer’s Health

No sir, Lawrence Taylor, it sure hasn’t been pretty. Watching your New York Giants rush passers is kind of like sitting through a Highway Patrol traffic-school film. Not a team for the squeamish or the lily-hearted, your Giants.

In fact, you almost need a little ambulance-chaser in you to stomach the highlights.

Where have all those quarterbacks gone, Leonard Marshall? You guys have taken them out of the game the way a bowler does a 10-pin.

Geez . . . concussions, brain scans, contusions, sprained thumbs, broken wrists, broken legs, torn tendons, bent fingers. Joe Theismann, Tommy Kramer, Ron Jaworski, Danny White and poor old Joe Montana, who has been trying to answer his phone all week.

Maybe the Giants don’t realize that National Football League quarterbacks can’t be replaced like paper towels. Maybe the Giants don’t care.

Maybe, as Dallas Cowboys quarterback White suggested, you need a little more protection against these guys.

“Maybe someone can develop a suit of armor, one you can throw in,” White said. “Other than that, I have no answers.”

White, like so many others, had his 1986 season cut short by a Giant killer who surprised him from the blind side, ruining a perfectly good season for the Cowboy quarterback.

It’s nothing new, really. Sure, the Giants knocked four quarterbacks out of the lineup this season. But they bounced four out in 1985, the most gruesome of those instances occurring at RFK Stadium on a Monday night, when linebacker Taylor made a wish with Joe Theismann’s leg, ending the Washington quarterback’s career.

That really wasn’t Taylor’s wish, though. And that’s the thing about the Giants: You can’t find a maimed quarterback who will say a bad word about them. The Giants wish no harm on anyone, it seems. They are merely a violent team in a violent game. They break quarterbacks, not rules.

“They’re clean,” said the Philadelphia Eagles’ Jaworski, who was given his season-ending Giant blow Nov. 9. “They’re very clean. That’s the question that always comes up when so many quarterbacks go down. But they play a clean game and I have respect for them. They’re not a bunch of loudmouth guys.”

White, who broke his wrist and was lost for the season Nov. 2 when hit by linebacker Carl Banks, agreed.

“There are guys in the league who will hurt you if they get the chance,” he said. “I don’t feel that way about the Giants. They play good, aggressive defense. I never sense any bad intent on their part.

“It makes a difference because you know they’re for real, they’re not a bunch of guys who built a big reputation by talking about themselves. They built it by hitting people on the field. That scares you sometimes.

“A team that tries to psych you out, well, you realize that’s just part of their game. You can ignore it. But the Giants just come out and knock you in the dirt.”

The Crippled-Quarterback Society blames Buddy Ryan and the Bears’ 46 defense of 1985 for turning the position of quarterback from one of glory to one of carnage. Responsible, of course, are blitzing, glassy-eyed linebackers coming at you on every down, daring you to get off a pass in time.

“They’re just turning people loose,” White said of opposing defenses like the Giants’. “No question, there’s more risks at quarterback, but there are more opportunities if you’re playing well. I enjoy playing against blitzing teams.”

White’s Cowboys were only one of two teams that beat the Giants this season. That was in the opener. White wasn’t so lucky the next time around.

Nor were some others.

The Giants’ 1986 log of quarterbacks maimed, in fact, reads like this:

Quarterback: Ron Jaworski.

Team: Philadelphia Eagles.

Date: Nov. 9.

Site: Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia.

Injury: Severed tendon in finger.

Administrator of pain: Linebacker Byron Hunt

Score: Giants 17, Eagles 14

Medical report: On the play on which he was injured, Jaworski took such a deep drop to avoid the rush that he ended up completing a pass for an 11-yard loss. Hit by Hunt just as he threw, Jaworski tore the tendon in his right little finger when he hit the artificial turf. He was out for the season.

Jaworski won’t lose any sleep if he never sees the Giants again. In the first meeting, at Giants Stadium Oct. 12, Jaworski lost feeling in his right hand after being hit by Marshall. Jaworski was sacked six times in that game.

“I looked at the film again and I took 13 clean hits,” Jaworski said. “I mean clean hits. I came home and asked if I really wanted to do this. They just kept coming. They just kept moving Taylor from side to side.”

Quarterback: Danny White.

Team: Dallas Cowboys.

Date: Nov 2.

Site: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, N.J.

Injury: Broken wrist

Administrator of pain: Linebacker Carl Banks.

Score: Giants 17, Cowboys 14.

Medical report: White was the NFC’s second-ranked passer when Banks blind-sided him in the first quarter. “I didn’t even see him,” White said. “The next thing I knew, I was on my back.”

The break occurred when Banks fell on White’s wrist. “I got to the sideline and it was swelling up. I knew I was out for the game.” Make that the season.

Quarterback: Tommy Kramer.

Team: Minnesota Vikings.

Date: Nov. 16.

Site: Metrodome, Minneapolis.

Injury: Strained thumb.

Administrator of pain: Linebacker Lawrence Taylor.

Score: Giants 22, Vikings 20.

Medical report: Kramer’s injury only proved that Taylor can even hurt you by accident. Early in the second half, after he had thrown a pass, Kramer caught his thumb in Taylor’s face mask.

Kramer, the NFL’s leading quarterback in 1986, missed two games and then game back against Green Bay. But trying to compensate for his thumb injury, Kramer changed his throwing style and developed a strain similar to tennis elbow.

Quarterback: Joe Montana.

Team: San Francisco 49ers.

Date: Jan. 4.

Site: Giants Stadium.

Injury: Concussion.

Administrator of pain: Nose tackle Jim Burt.

Score: Giants 49, 49ers 3.

Medical report: Montana actually suffered his concussion on the hit from Burt and not from banging his head on the artificial turf, as was first believed.

Of course, that’s of little concern to Montana, who still doesn’t remember the second-quarter pass that was intercepted by Taylor and returned 34 yards for a touchdown, or what happened afterward. “I can sort of remember most of the first half, unfortunately,” he was quoted Wednesday. “But I don’t know anything about what happened in the second half.”

Montana was held overnight for observation at Manhattan’s Hospital For Special Surgery, where Burt visited him Sunday night. Montana flew home to San Francisco Monday and said he was feeling fine Wednesday, although he was still experiencing some headaches.

Jaworski said he cringed when he saw Montana go down. CBS television quickly added Montana to the Giants’ quarterback hit list.

“They put the graphic up there,” Jaworski said. “It doesn’t give you a whole lot of confidence when you go out there. It’s no treat.”

The Giants were not the NFL’s No. 1-ranked defense this season. They finished second to the Chicago Bears. The Giants had 59 quarterback sacks, but they did not lead the NFL. The Raiders with 63, and the Bears and San Diego Chargers with 62 each, had more. Yet, the Giants have replaced the Bears this season as the most-feared defense in the NFL.

And, as our wounded quarterbacks tell us, it’s not just because of the menacing Taylor, who led the NFL in sacks with 20 1/2.

A lot of it has to do with momentum, confidence and, yes, even some of the guys who hang around Taylor.

Jaworski said: “Lawrence Taylor gets all the credit for being the heart and soul of the team, but they have a lot of good players. They have 11 solid players.

White said: “Lawrence Taylor wouldn’t be a dominating player without great people around him. He has a great supporting cast. Any time one guy gets that much attention, you usually can look around him and see some good players.”

Said Kramer: “No question, their strength is at linebacker (Taylor, Harry Carson, Hunt, Banks and Co.), which puts them up there with the Bears. Their front seven is as good as anybody’s.”

Yet, all the quarterbacks interviewed said they thought the Redskins had a chance to upset the Giants in Sunday’s NFC title game. Not a great chance, but a chance.