If Fouts Cannot Get It Done for Chargers, Then Who Can?

Heroes, to my mind, should never be vanquished. They should never be put into positions in which they cannot possibly succeed, then castigated when they don’t.

It happened here in San Diego during the summer.

It happened to Steve Garvey.

He was the guy who made time stand still when he gave San Diego the most cherished moment in its sports history, that playoff home run in 1984. He was back-slapped and high-fived and idolized.

A couple of years later and a couple of years older, Garvey injured his right shoulder this summer . . . and disappeared. It was as though he were no longer a person. He was history. We’ll call you, but don’t hold your breath until the telephone rings.

I fear it might be happening here in San Diego again. Right now.

I fear it is happening to Dan Fouts.

Nothing good has happened to the Chargers for more than 20 years unless Dan Fouts has been the quarterback. The best of the Dan Fouts years have been the best of the Charger years, at least since the days of Alworth, Lincoln and Lowe.

Suddenly, all seems to have gone sour. Significantly, it has come to a head at the end of a season gone sour.

Fouts, like Garvey, is out for the remainder of this season because of an injury to his right shoulder. Barring a new-math miracle and a wild-card playoff spot, the end of the season will come Sunday in Denver.

The possibility exists that Dan Fouts’ career may also be over. What disturbs me is that there seem to be so many people who think it should be. I have read it, and I have heard it on the air. It is being said that the Chargers are desperately in need of a quarterback, as if the position is either vacant or occupied by some refugee from the waiver wire.

It is as though Dan Fouts has, almost as suddenly as Steve Garvey, ceased to exist.

Incredible.

If, as skeptics insist, the Chargers cannot make the playoffs with Fouts at quarterback, they certainly cannot get there without him, either. They never have, not since the playoffs as they are known today began.

This is not to say I have buried my brains at the beach. I am not going to argue that he is as good now as he was five years ago. Very few athletes, possible exceptions being Ted Williams, George Blanda and Hoyt Wilhelm, are as good at 36 as they are at 31.

But Fouts never did have John Elway’s agility or Dan Marino’s arm. Fouts is more like Bobby Layne. He has probably won more games in the huddle than many quarterbacks win at the line of scrimmage. He wins with sheer determination. He wins with a command presence.

Once the play is in motion, Fouts almost looks comical at times. He backs away from the center with those little mincing steps, as if he is trying to escape a rattlesnake. He has never had an arm that could throw the ball through a wall, but he always knew where the wide receiver would be on the other side. And the ball would get there. So what if it went over the wall rather than through it?

Attitude, I am saying, does not erode with age.

I concede that Fouts has taken a fearsome physical battering.

I’ll give you some names and dates that lend some insight into why the Chargers have not been to the playoffs of late, and why Fouts has been so often injured of late.

Try Russ Washington, 1982. Billy Shields, 1983. Doug Wilkerson, 1984. Ed White, 1985.

Familiar?

Those were the Chargers’ starting guards and tackles in the 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982 playoff years. Notice when the playoff years end? Right. They end when the first of those linemen played his last down. There just might be a correlation.

Consider that Fouts played nine games in the strike-shortened 1982 season and was sacked 12 times for 94 yards. In this season, another shortened by strike, he has played 10 games and part of another and been sacked 24 times for 176 yards.

Fouts insisted through all those best of years that it wasn’t him, but rather a team deal. And I’ll insist the lean years are not him, but rather a team deal.

What will happen with this man in 1988?

It is significant to note that his $750,000-a-year contract runs through the 1988 season. He might conclude it is no longer worth the abuse and retire, forsaking the $750,000. The club might quietly offer to buy him out. Or it might be business as usual at training camp.

I suspect it will be a combination of the above.

A clue can be found in the bewildering controversy of the 1987 preseason, when management said it was backed to the wall by Fouts’ financial demands and would try to trade him. Fouts himself said there had been no financial demands.

Come again?

No one as yet has come clean on exactly what happened, and I have talked to everyone involved. However, my suspicion, gleaned in bits and pieces, is that management was trying to get him to play the 1987 season for maybe $1 million and then retire.

If that was the case, the climate upstairs would seem to favor someone other than Dan Fouts at quarterback in 1988. If management is so inclined, it will support its position by pointing to the team’s late-season collapse and the fact that injuries kept Fouts from starting two key games against division rivals.

Should this be the scenario, only one thing would be missing from the picture.

Another quarterback.

Until they have such a man, they had better not be too hasty to fade this hero named Dan Fouts into the sunset.