PRO FOOTBALL ’87 : COACHES, PLAYERS, TEAMS AND TRENDS TO WATCH THIS SEASON : This Season, Fouts Is a Quarterback in Question

There comes a time in every great quarterback’s life when it happens. He’s on the fringe. He can still walk into any huddle and tell everyone to hush up and get away with it. He can still direct a two-minute drill that’ll knock your socks off. But then he’ll under-throw a ball or two or three. And then he’ll throw an interception or two or three. And when you want him to be able to play every week, he can’t. It’s sad.

Charger quarterback Dan Fouts has reached his “time-to-answer-some-questions” season. Is he on the fringe or what?

Is he over the hill or what? Can he throw a 20-yard spiral or what? Can he bend over and touch his toes or what? Does he hate his owner or what?

He’s 36 and there are two years left on his contract, including this one, but if he quit now, he’d shame no one. He has had 48 300-yard games, more than any other quarterback. He has had six 400-yard games, more than any quarterback. He could quit now and be in the Hall of Fame.

He could be known as The Beard, but he certainly isn’t The Body. He says he tried getting out of a chair a couple of months ago but found himself hunched over like the guy from Notre Dame. He was a little concerned about it, so he went to a few doctors and learned that scar tissue had built up in his back. Because of all those sacks.

He was healthy enough to play racquetball (“Haven’t seen anyone on the team who can beat me,” he says), but the Chargers were wondering if he could throw a spiral. He thought he passed their physical examination, but they said he didn’t. Then, according to a source outside the organization, owner Alex Spanos asked Fouts in a private meeting if he would take $1 million to play just one more season (instead of getting $750,000 a year for two more seasons) and then retire.

Fouts, according to that source, would not.

This eventually grew into an internal spat that was well-documented in the media. At this very moment, Fouts says he and Spanos haven’t spoken since their private meeting during training camp, even though Spanos maintains that everything’s rosy.

In the meantime, Fouts goes about his business. The other day in practice, a rookie receiver named Jamie Holland was lined up incorrectly, and Fouts shouted: “Get on the ball, Jamie! Get on the ball!” Holland got on the ball.

Then, warming up before a game in San Francisco, one of his receivers didn’t reach for a sideline pass, and Fouts called him names because of it. Apparently, Fouts was trying to get his timing and needed to know how far he had overthrown the guy.

If last week’s game means anything--and exhibition games usually don’t--it’s the same old Fouts. He completed 16 passes in 21 attempts for 241 yards and two touchdowns in a little more than a half against the Jets. One of the touchdowns you’ve seen a million times. He backpedaled three steps and threw for the sidelines while his receiver, Wes Chandler, was still looking into the belly of the opposing cornerback. Suddenly, Chandler turned, and the ball was immediately in his gut. The cornerback missed the tackle, and Chandler was in the end zone a moment later.

Was it a mirage or what?

Dan and His Arm

Nobody, not even his coaches or teammates, thinks he throws with the same velocity. If it sounds as if they’re comparing him to a baseball pitcher, they sort of are. Fouts walks around after practice with his elbow immersed in ice, just as Dwight Gooden would. He throws only a certain number of passes in practice before he says, “That’s enough.”

“He feels there’s only so many throws in his arm,” says Roger Theder, the Charger quarterback coach. “He’d rather save it for the game.”

Sometimes, the arm looks a little ragged in practice, but then again, it’s just practice, right? The other day, Theder had his quarterbacks working on a balance drill, in which they would shuffle to the right, shuffle to the left and then throw into a netted target attached to the goal post. Younger quarterbacks hit the target easily, but Fouts missed so badly one day, he hit the side of the goal post. Everyone laughed, including Fouts. On his next attempt, he again missed the target but managed to hit the net.

“Hey, I’m making progress,” he wisecracked.

Some were alarmed by Fouts’ 22 interceptions last season, which just about ruined the Chargers’ giveaway-takeaway ratio. Theder, who wasn’t with the team last year, has analyzed the films and isn’t sure if it was Fouts’ arm or his selection of receivers that caused the turnovers.

Fouts, as a lot of quarterbacks will do, tries to zip the ball in between two, sometimes three, defenders to get the ball to his primary receiver. Theder noticed that Fouts was throwing to the same guys every week, tight end Kellen Winslow and Chandler. Defenses sort of caught on.

So Theder has asked Fouts to spread the passes around a little, and Fouts seems agreeable. Still, he isn’t worried about his arm.

“First of all, you’ve got to examine each and every interception last year,” Fouts says. “Look at what teams they were against (he threw five against the Giants) and in what circumstances. I haven’t changed my approach to the game, and I’m not gonna change. I’ll throw it where I think the ball should go, and if people say that’s throwing into coverage, that’s fine. I’ve been throwing into coverage my whole life.”

Asked if his arm’s the same as it ever was, he said: “Yes.”

Dan and Roger

Fouts has been buddy-buddy with coaches such as Ernie Zampese and Joe Gibbs, both of whom were offensive coordinators under Don Coryell. He is especially close to Zampese, who now works for the Rams.

So enter Theder, who is sort of infringing on Fouts’ territory. Theder is as pleasant as they come, a former head coach at California and a self-described mad bomber. But there were rumors that Fouts wasn’t too pleased with where the Charger offense was headed under new coach Al Saunders. Rumor was that the Chargers wanted to run the ball more, which kind of takes the fun out of the game for a guy like Fouts.

Fouts has taken a wait-and-see attitude, but Theder was a little apprehensive heading into training camp, especially when Fouts joined the team late after his contract squabble.

“Dan might have had some mixed feelings about me,” Theder says. “In fact, I’m sure he did. I think Dan’s one of those guys who doesn’t like change. He was probably saying, ‘Who is this guy?’ ”

Fouts, from time to time, has had to correct Theder’s Charger lingo. This is a complicated offense, and Theder has periodically called a “zoom” a “sail,” even though they basically mean the same thing. It’s just football jargon.

Basically, there have been no problems, except for last week, when Theder--who was calling plays from the press box--thought it was first down and called for a screen pass. Actually, it was third and one, and Fouts was a little surprised by the call. The Jets knocked down his screen pass, and Fouts came running toward the sideline to speak with Theder.

“He just told me I’d caught him off guard with the call,” Theder says. “I’m glad we talked about it. That’s good. I want to know how he felt out there. I want to talk to him. It does no good for us just to sit there and watch the game while we could be talking.”

Asked about Theder, Fouts said: “He’s doing a good job.”

Dan and His Offensive Line

In the old days, it was Shields and Wilkerson and White and Washington and Macek.

“I can rattle their names off just like that,” Fouts says.

Today, it’s Kowalski and McKnight and Claphan and Lachey and Macek.

Fouts doesn’t rattle their names off.

Not that this is a bad offensive line. It’s improving all the time. Just the same, the Chargers think it might be best if they used more of the shotgun offense, just to protect Fouts’ body.

Theder asked Fouts about it the other day, but Fouts preferred to stay away from the shotgun.

“Dan says he’s more comfortable at the line,” Theder says. “He likes to look the linebackers in the eyes, just to get the feel of what they’re going to do.”

What they’re going to do is throw him on his back from time to time.

“Dan sort of brings it on himself, too,” Chandler says. “No quarterback drops back shorter. That’s what Joe Namath used to do. Dan’s holding the ball and holding the ball, allowing guys to get open. And if it takes getting hit, he’ll get hit. But you see, a lot of times I’ll be looking at the films, and it’s that last second of waiting that makes the difference between a complete and an incomplete.”

So this year, it’s all up to Kowalski and McKnight and Claphan and Lachey and Macek.

Lachey: “He’s not the mobilest of quarterbacks, but we’ll do what we can.”

Claphan: “We’ll do whatever it takes, whatever it takes. You try to keep him standing. If that means hold, you hold.”

Macek: “Dan who?”

Macek’s the veteran, the holdover. He can say things like that.

Dan and His Family

Fouts is all dressed, with flak jacket packed, and ready to go to Kansas City this weekend. Odds are that sometime in the next 16 weeks, a nose tackle will punch him in the nose, and he’ll start bleeding. It is hoped he’ll stop bleeding this time, because last time it took awhile, and his nose became a mess. Team doctors tried to stop the bleeding with cotton that day, and it didn’t work. Apparently, he’d taken so much aspirin over the years for his injuries that his blood wouldn’t coagulate quickly.

Coaches have seen him get whacked and have asked him to take a rest. He’ll always say: “Give it a rest. I’m playing.”

Apparently, this get-up-and-go syndrome goes way back in Fouts’ family history. For instance, Dan’s grandfather, William B. Fouts, was a town constable. According to Bob Fouts--Dan’s father--this William B. Fouts was the toughest guy in town. One day, there was a shoot-out in a saloon, and somebody got killed. The man who had done the shooting was getting chased by a lynch mob, but William B. Fouts got to him first, disarmed him and put him on the first horse and buggy out of town.

Then, William B. Fouts told the lynch mob to go on home, or so the story goes.

Bob Fouts also talks about Dan’s late grandmother, Matilda Fouts, who lived until she was 88 and was mowing her lawn and cleaning the gutters at her home up until the time she died.

Bob figures this is why Dan is so hard-headed on the football field.

“He’s always been that way,” Bob says. “When I used to play him in tennis a long time ago, I knew how to make him mad. You see, he didn’t want to be a sissy, so I’d say, ‘Gee, that was a nice shot, Alice.’ And he’d lose his cool, and I’d win.”

Bob is the former voice of the San Francisco 49ers and also used to be a sports anchor in the Bay Area.

Often, Bob would take Dan on the road with him. Dan’s first trip was to Baltimore for a game against the Colts, and Bob still has a picture of cold little Dan sitting on the team bench wearing a wool cap. When Dan later joined the Chargers, John Unitas--who’d played for the Colts that day--was Dan’s teammate.

“I remember seeing you play,” Dan told him. “I was about 8 years old.”

As Dan grew older, he became a 49er ballboy. One of his jobs was to throw a clean ball to the referee, and he’d give them nice, tight spirals. When he was in junior high, a high school coach saw him whipping a few passes to the referee and immediately became interested in Dan.

Pretty soon, Bob was covering Dan’s games. One day, Bob had to go into the Charger locker room to tape some interviews, and there was a tremendous crowd around Dan’s locker. Bob couldn’t push his way through, so he just stuck his microphone into the group.

“Get this damn thing out of my mouth!” Dan suddenly shouted.

The crowd opened up, and Dan saw it was his dad.

“Sorry,” he said.

Dan and Alex

The flak a few weeks back between Fouts and Spanos is not over, contrary to public image.

At one point during the flak, Spanos threatened to trade Fouts.

“I never want to leave (San Diego),” Fouts says now. “There’s just no way. My whole life is here.”

Of the ordeal with Spanos, Fouts says: “You get reminders of it almost daily with the transactions that have happened in the last few weeks. It’s there. It still exists. But it’s nothing that’ll keep my from doing my job. The great thing about my job is that I can isolate the entire world when I get out on the field and just concentrate on the 10 other guys in the huddle with me. That’s the appeal of football to me right now.”

What Fouts means by the recent “transactions” is easy to explain. Some of the older players--who wish to remain anonymous--think Spanos is trying to get rid of the old group of Chargers who were here before him--people such as Fouts and kicker Rolf Benirschke.

Benirschke, in fact, was traded last week, and some players say privately that it was because Benirschke gave the thumbs-up sign to Denver kicker Rich Karlis in 1984, right before Karlis booted a field goal to beat the Chargers.

Did that cost Benirschke his job? Was Spanos trying to give Fouts the boot, too?

“Hey, listen, if that was the case, Fouts wouldn’t be here,” Spanos says. “I’m just happy Dan’s back in uniform. I’ve forgotten what happened the last month and a half. It’s history. He’s back in uniform, and that’s where he wants to be. We just want to get into the season and go to the playoffs and hopefully the Super Bowl.

“And I don’t know who implied that I held that Karlis kick against Benirschke. That’s bull. If it were true, he would have been gone right away. All I care about is if we win. I don’t care how old you are.”

In other words, Dan Fouts is allowed to act his age.