CAN THEY GET THE BEST OF BENIRSCHKE? : Chargers Bring In Two to Challenge the Veteran Kicker

The Chargers have a hunch that it’s time to give Rolf Benirschke the proverbial swift kick.

Football coaches continually plan, and the Charger coaches think Benirschke--the greatest placekicker in team history--might not be headed in the same direction they are.

“What you’re wondering is, did he just have a bad year last season, or is he through?” special teams coach Wayne Sevier said.

The Chargers don’t want a replay of 1986, when Benirschke made his kicks when the games were out of hand, and failed to make them when they were at hand. He missed important late field goals against Kansas City and Dallas and also failed on an extra point for the first time since 1983.

It’s not that his field-goal percentage--16 of 25 for 64%--was outrageously poor, and it’s not that he’s ancient at age 32. It’s just that he might have been giving the Chargers a signal of things to come, and they figured they had better take precautionary measures.

So Steve Ortmayer, the director of football operations who is a former Raider special teams coach, brought in two kickers to liven up training camp, which used to be boring for Benirschke, who has been with the team since 1977.

Now also competing for the job are Jeff Gaffney, a rookie from the University of Virginia, and Vince Abbott of Cal State Fullerton, who is Ortmayer’s pet project.

Ortmayer gave Abbott a tryout with the Raiders last season and stayed in touch with him all year, even after Chris Bahr narrowly beat out Abbott for the job. Ortmayer invited Abbott to every Raider home game last year, and when Ortmayer joined the Charger management, he gave Abbott a call and signed him to a free-agent contract.

Abbott has made his boss look brilliant so far. He went 2 for 2 on field goals and even made two tackles on kickoff coverage in the team’s 29-0 win in its exhibition opener against Dallas. Gaffney missed a 28-yarder, and Benirschke was wide on an extra point.

Sunday night’s game against the Rams is Phase II of the competition that Benirschke refuses to let faze him. In 1979, he had ulcerative colitis and nearly died of complications involving two surgical procedures, so he has keeps football in perspective.

Consequently, he has taken quite kindly to Abbott and Gaffney, who, by the way, are inseparable. Benirschke has brought both of them into his home; he has shared meals with them.

“I don’t want anyone to say I was a jerk,” Benirschke said.

Crying Rolf?

On Oct. 18, 1979, honorary Charger captain Rolf Benirschke, who weighed 123 pounds then, walked to midfield at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium for the coin flip.

The next season, Benirschke returned from his illness weighing 50 more pounds. The city of San Diego applauded his courage, but he didn’t need their sympathy; he needed his job back.

At the time, Benirschke was concerned that the Chargers would simply hand it to him.

He thought: “What else could they do? They’ll feel too sorry for me to cut me.”

So he visited Gene Klein, then the Charger owner, and asked Klein to let him earn it. Klein, who also had been concerned about the public sentiment, said: “I appreciate that, Rolf.”

But Benirschke won the job fair and square, and the accomplishment is relevant even during this camp. Benirschke is considered to be one of the nicest guys around, but he also is darned determined.

People in the Charger organization still bring up the day in 1984 when Benirschke gave a thumbs-up signal to Denver kicker Rich Karlis just before Karlis beat them with a game-winning field goal. The new owner, Alex Spanos, was particularly peeved, and Benirschke has no idea whether it will still be held against him.

“It (being friendly with a fellow kicker) doesn’t mean I compete any less hard,” Benirschke said the other day. “I compete, but competition doesn’t mean wishing the other guy misses.”

So Benirschke says his desire to be the 1987 Charger kicker should not be questioned. He has so much here in this city. He owns a travel agency and a limousine service, and he still “Kicks for Critters”; after every field goal, Benirschke donates $50 to research to aid endangered animal species.

“I’d like to kick here,” said Benirschke, whose most famous field goal was a 29-yarder, 13:52 into overtime, to lift the Chargers over the Miami Dolphins, 41-38, in a 1981 playoff game. “I’ve thought about what would happen if I had to go to another team, and I don’t know what I’d do. . . . A lot of things are keeping me here.”

Benirschke will not make excuses for last season or the last four years. He’s the third most accurate kicker in NFL history (70.2%), but he has only made 64% of his field goals since 1983.

In his defense, there has been a revolving door of special team coaches, holders and snappers.

Benirschke thinks Coach Al Saunders does realize what has happened.

Saunders said: “True, Rolf has a fight on his hands. But right now, Rolf is our kicker. He was last year, and I’ve said all along that our incumbents must be beat out. Last year is last year. It doesn’t matter what people have done in the past. We base our results on today.”

Today, Benirschke’s exhibition statistics read: Three extra points attempted; one missed.

“I’m really disappointed I missed it,” he said. “I shouldn’t have.”

Sevier said, “Obviously that (missed extra point) is a factor. He needed to make that.”

Sevier, it should be noted, spent the last six seasons with the Washington Redskins, for whom kicker Mark Moseley thrived from 1974 to 1986 before being waived. In 1981, Moseley struggled badly, and the Redskins thought he was going backward, not forward--just like the Charger attitude toward Benirschke. Moseley was also in his 30s. The Redskins, thinking the time might be right for a switch, brought in terrific competition before the 1982 season.

Moseley won the job.

Moseley was the NFL’s Most Valuable Player that year.

“So you never know about Rolf,” Sevier said.

Linebacker Mind

Vince Abbott immigrated to the United States on July 4, 1976, which happened to be a pretty big day in American history.

So he knows a little something about timing.

“You gotta be in the right place at the right time,” he said.

It works that way in football, where it isn’t so easy to boot out an incumbent kicker. Ortmayer wonders why Abbott hasn’t tried one NFL kick and why he has been cut from three consecutive training camps. Abbott says that at one point last year, he made 69 straight field goals during practice with the Raiders. And he still was cut.

The reason was incumbent Chris Bahr.

The reason in 1985 was incumbent Donald Igwebuike of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The reason in 1984 was incumbent Bob Thomas of the Chicago Bears.

“Maybe the timing is right here in San Diego,” Abbott said.

He was born in England and has lived in Australia, New Zealand, the Bahamas and Canada. He has played rugby and Australian rules football.

“They call Australian rules football aerial ping-pong,” he said the other day. “That’s because everyone jumps up for the ball and knocks into each other.”

He remembers one of his rugby teams that lost four players in one game: two because of concussions, one because of a broken leg and one because of cramps.

“Rugby’s tough,” he said. “I like it. . . . It taught me how to tackle.”

He became a kicker because he didn’t think he knew enough about football to play linebacker.

“I have a linebacker’s mentality,” he said.

The last team he played for was the 1983 Los Angeles Express, and he made 21 of 30 field goals. The next year, the Express drafted Luis Zendejas and handed Zendejas the job. The day Zendejas signed, they simply waived Abbott.

He has a job waiting for him in commercial real estate, but don’t bet the ranch on him going back anytime soon. Sevier was impressed by Abbott’s two kicks against the Cowboys, one of which was a 44-yarder off the infield dirt at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

“It’s not easy kicking off that dirt,” Sevier said.

If there’s a rap on Abbott, it’s that his kicks have a low trajectory. If he gets one or two blocked, the Chargers might cool on him a little.

His relationship with Ortmayer can’t hurt.

‘28 Yards?’

“Field-goal alert! Field-goal alert!”

Jeff Gaffney did a deep knee bend and got ready to go. Then he looked toward the field. It would be a 33-yard field goal. That was fine with him, he thought. No problem, he thought.

He ran on the field and felt a slight breeze. If it were a 30-yard kick or even shorter, he would aim right down the middle. But since it was a 33-yard kick and since it was windy, he aimed for just inside the right upright and let the ball hook back through the goal posts.

The snap was good, the hold was good, but the kick . . .

“Gaffney’s kick is wide right from 28 yards,” said the public address announcer.

“Twenty-eight yards?” Gaffney said to himself. “What?”

There had been a penalty on third down, just before Gaffney’s kick. He thought the Dallas Cowboys had taken the penalty, but they had declined it. His kick had been 28 yards, not 33. If he had aimed straight ahead, the kick would have been good. He had been too close to try hooking it.

“Rookie mistake,” Gaffney says now.

He has been kicking footballs for only two years. A soccer player in high school, where he was an All-American, Gaffney was at Virginia when he saw Kenny Stadlin, the Virginia kicker who had just graduated, kicking footballs on a university field.

Gaffney decided to give it a try and said he made one from 50 yards on his first attempt. Stadlin told the football coach, George Welsh.

Gaffney ended up starting for the Cavaliers and made 12 of 16 kicks in 1986. After the season, Roger Theder, the Charger quarterback coach, was scouting Cavalier quarterback Don Majkowski when Gaffney asked if he could kick a few.

Theder said yes. When Gaffney made two straight from beyond 50 yards, Theder asked for his name and number.

So here he is. After he missed that 28-yarder last week, Saunders pulled him aside and said: “Gaffney, we’re paying you to make field goals here.”

With one second left in the first half, Gaffney got another chance from 47 yards.

“If I missed, it was goodby, San Diego,” Gaffney says now.

He made it, of course.

“That was do-or-die,” Sevier said.

“That’s why he’s still here,” Saunders said.

So that’s where it stands heading into Sunday night’s Ram game.

Charger Notes

The Chargers made a bottom-line contract offer Friday to unsigned linebacker Billy Ray Smith. In response, Smith’s agent, George Kalafaitis, decided to fly here from Cleveland to continue negotiations later Friday night. Steve Ortmayer, director of football operations, said: “I believe it will get done.” Smith said: “This is it. I feel it’s almost over. I guess, judging from what Steve said, this is do-or-die. They didn’t really start negotiating with us until July, so for them to come in with a time restraint today is a little wacky. But, hey, they’re wacky people down there, and I’m a little wacky, too.”