Chargers and Raiders Try to Speed It Up : Holohan Dealt to the Rams for Draft Pick
The Chargers got the fastest wide receiver in the NFL draft Sunday. Tennessee’s Anthony Miller, a former track star from Pasadena, has been timed in the 40-yard dash in 4.33 seconds, the 100 meters in 10.3 and the 200 meters in 20.6.
Time flies when he’s having fun.
And Miller figures to provide lots of that for a franchise desperate for team speed.
“He’s infectious,” said Charlie Joiner, the team’s receivers coach.
And catch this: Miller will play right away for the Chargers next season.
“He’d better,” Joiner said. “Or I won’t be here very much longer.” Joiner and Charger Coach Al Saunders wanted Miller almost from the beginning of final player evaluation.
Steve Ortmayer, the Chargers’ director of football operations, figured he would get one of the “home-run hitters” he had hoped for before the draft when the first round unfolded favorably early.
He said he even talked briefly with the Giants about trading up five spots for the 10th pick in the first round before deciding it wasn’t necessary.
The player he would have taken with that pick: Anthony Miller.
The price he would have had to pay for that move: Two fourth round picks.
After Miller, the Chargers traded a fifth-round pick to Houston to move up 12 spots in the third round where they made Iowa wide receiver Quinn Early the 60th player selected.
Early, who had a first round grade on the Chargers’ draft board, is a former Big Ten long jump champion (1986) and almost as fast as Miller. Saunders said Early has run a 4.36 in the 40.
Moments after the Early selection, the Chargers surprisingly traded popular reserve tight end Pete Holohan to the Rams for the ninth pick of the fourth round, which they used to select Joe Campbell. Campbell is a 6-foot 2-inch, 236-pound outside linebacker/defensive end from New Mexico State.
With their two subsequent fourth-round choices the Chargers picked Stacy Searels a 6-5, 275-pound offensive tackle from Auburn and David Richards, a 6-4, 316-pound offensive tackle from UCLA.
What the Chargers didn’t get Sunday was a new quarterback to throw the football to Miller and Early.
Before they chose Miller with the 15th selection of the first round, they didn’t even bother checking back with the Washington Redskins about obtaining veteran quarterback Jay Schroeder.
By the morning of the draft they knew the price was too high. To have gotten Schroeder, Redskin general manager Bobby Beathard confirmed, “would have taken an arm and a leg.”
Which probably means the Chargers will fly in 1988 on the wing of quarterback Mark Malone and a prayer.
“I think Mark Malone can throw the ball as far as anybody in football,” Ortmayer said. But, he added, the Chargers will continue to look for the best available veteran quarterback.
Beathard never specified what Schroeder would have cost the Chargers. But he referred to the two No. 1s the Rams paid Houston two years ago for Purdue quarterback Jim Everett, then said Schroeder “would have cost a whole lot more.”
“The Redskins were asking a giant price,” Ortmayer said.
By the end of the day five rounds had been completed. The final seven will take place today. The Chargers still have a sixth, a ninth, two No. 11s and a 12th.
The Chargers didn’t have a second round pick, having traded it to the Rams last year for running back Barry Redden.
But it is Miller who will mostly determine how well the Chargers did in the draft. The experts graded this year’s talent pool as fair-to-poor. That’s contrasted with, say, next year, when the first round prospects are anticipated to be well above average.
Joiner and Saunders coveted Miller long before the draft. By the time the scouting staff had looked at Miller last Tuesday in an informal workout at UCLA, everybody was in agreement.
“We wanted to get it clear in everybody’s mind exactly what Anthony Miller was,” Joiner said of the workout. “It worked.”
Saunders, who served as Tennessee’s offensive coordinator in 1982, checked Miller out with Tennessee Coach Johnny Majors. Majors told Saunders Miller was the best receiver he had ever coached at Tennessee.
If Majors turns out to be correct, Miller will turn out to be better than Cincinnati’s Tim McGee and Chicago’s Willie Gault, both former No. 1s from Tennessee.
Miller is 5-11, 175 pounds and 23 years old. He tore the posterior ligament in his right knee in the first game of the 1987 season. But he only missed five games after routine arthroscopic surgery.
“The knee,” he said, “is stronger than it was before the injury.”
Miller played just one year of prep football at Pasadena’s Muir High School. And in 1984 he came to San Diego State on a track scholarship.
After one semester he left for Pasadena City College so he could play football and run track.
But he was also beginning to realize football was his future.
“I don’t like track,” Miller said. “I never did. You can only go so far in track. In football you can go a little farther.”
And, unless you are somebody like 1984 quadruple Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis or 100 meter world-record holder Ben Johnson, you can make more money.
To that end, Miller has retained agent Bruce Allen, son of George Allen, a one-time NFL coach.
Bruce Allen, a former USFL general manager for the Chicago Bliotz, became a sports agent after that league folded. Last year, he represented Pittsburgh linebacker Tony Woods, a first-round pick of Seattle.
Among his clients this year was Pittsburgh running back Craig (Ironhead) Heyward, who had one more year of eligibility when he signed with Allen. Originally, the NFL planned to keep Heyward from the draft.
But when Allen threatened a lawsuit, the league backed off and allowed Heyward into the draft.
“I do not foresee any contract problems with the Chargers on Anthony Miller,” Allen said.
Allen’s philosophy on contracts and negotiations: “I hate holdouts and the shorter (in years) the contract for my client the better.”
Joiner says Miller, a physical education major, shouldn’t have much trouble adjusting to the complexities of the NFL even though he has only played three full seasons of football.
Miller, who says he is 24 credits short of a degree, hopes to graduate this summer.
The additions of Miller and Early (6-0, 193) will put pressure on veteran starter Wes Chandler to retain his job. Former running back Lionel James, switched last year to wide receiver, “ends up being somebody who will play a variety of positions,” Saunders said.
Saunders labeled Campbell, “the type of pass rusher we’re looking for in our scheme.” Campbell should also help immediately on special teams.
Searels played mostly tackle at Auburn. But the Chargers drafted him as a combination guard-center.
Saunders and Ortmayer both expressed regret at losing Holohan who played seven years with the team. But with Kellen Winslow, Eric Sievers and last year’s No. 1, Rod Bernstine, also at that position, Holohan was expendable.
“I think we will greatly miss his intensity and enthusiasm for the game,” Saunders said.
Said Ortmayer: “He will probably play very well for the Rams.”
Despite the relatively few early-round deals, Ortmayer said there was an unusually high number of phone calls from team to team during that period.
Part of the reason for the shortage of trades, he said, was because “nobody screwed up.”
Ortmayer said more than one team called the Chargers offering veteran players in exchange for the 15th pick. But by then the coaches and the scouting staff were in agreement that Miller was the player for them.
Ortmayer said the Chargers were equally thrilled about getting Early on the third round and only having to surrender a fifth-round pick and switch thirds to get him.
At one time, Early hoped to qualify for the 1988 U.S. Olympic track and field team as a long jumper. But like, Miller, he gave up that sport to devote his energies to football.
CHARGER DRAFT, DAY 1
Name: Comment Anthony Miller: Fastest wide receiver in the draft;minor question on right knee. Quinn Early: Former Big Ten long jump champion; hair slower than Miller. Joe Campbell: Potential is as a pass rusher; special teams help right now. Stacy Searels: Charger center Don Macek, 33, can’t play forever. David Richards: Attended same high school in Dallas as Steve Ortmayer. CHARGER DRAFT, DAY 1
Where Picked Name School Pos. Hgt Wgt Rd. 1, 15th Overall Anthony Miller Tennessee WR 5-11 175 Rd. 3, 60th Overall Quinn Early Iowa WR 6-0 193 Rd. 4, 91st Overall Joe Campbell New Mexico St. OLB 6-3 1/2 236 Rd. 4, 93rd Overall Stacy Searels Auburn G/C 6-5 1/2 275 Rd. 4, 98th Overall David Richards UCLA T/G 6-4 1/2 316