Keys, Flutie Know Burdens of Stardom : But Not First Hand; They’re Just 2 Guys Trying to Stay in NFL With the Chargers

Tyrone Keys and Darren Flutie are the long and the short of it. Keys is the tallest defensive lineman on the Chargers’ training camp roster. Flutie is the shortest wide receiver.

On the Chargers’ 108-man roster, Keys is the only player, other than cornerback Elvis Patterson, with a Super Bowl ring. Flutie is the only one with a Heisman Trophy in the family.

The chances that either will make the final 45-man roster are questionable. The chances that both will survive the last cut are thinner than Don Knotts.

Keys, 27, is a 6 - foot 7-inch pass rusher who insists that he has improved his run defense. He spent the past season and a half serving time on Ray Perkins’ roster at Tampa Bay. He says “the window shopping is over.” That means he plans to stay in San Diego.

The Chargers have liked what they have seen from Keys so far. And, thanks to the contract holdouts of defensive linemen Joe Phillips, Lee Williams and Mike Charles, they have seen a lot.

“Tyrone Keys should look good right now,” Coach Al Saunders says guardedly. “He’s been in the league a long time. But he’s shown a good work ethic.”

Saunders gave his players the day off Friday so the coaches could grade film of the team’s practices Wednesday and Thursday against the Dallas Cowboys in Thousand Oaks. At 1:30 p.m. Friday afternoon, the Chargers’ UC San Diego practice field was empty. Except for Tyrone Keys. He was running sprints. By himself. Work ethic.

Flutie is a 5-10 free agent rookie from Boston College, where he was the Eagles’ all-time leading receiver. He is 21 and fighting for the fourth wide receiver spot on the roster. The first three have been conceded to Jamie Holland, Anthony Miller and Quinn Early for, the Chargers hope, the next 10 years.

Flutie cringes politely when he is called a “possession” receiver.

“I guess that rap is because I’m white and not the fastest guy in the world,” he says. “But I don’t really like that at all. I do the same things that, say, Jamie and Anthony do. They just do it a lot faster.”

Like Keys, Flutie has caught Saunders’ eye.

“He doesn’t make errors,” Saunders says. “And every once in a while, he’ll come up with a big play.”

That won’t be good enough for the talent scouts from the cottage industry that sports biography publishing has become. Keys and Flutie understand.

When he was with the Chicago Bears in 1985, Keys was William “The Refrigerator” Perry’s closest friend. Perry was the overweight and relatively unknown rookie, labeled a “wasted draft pick” by Bears defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan.

Darren Flutie is the younger brother of Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie.

Perry graduated to fame, fortune, Letterman and the Advertising Age Hall of Fame. Doug Flutie won the Heisman Trophy, signed for a skyscraper full of Donald Trump’s USFL money and bought into a restaurant.

Keys and Darren Flutie graduated to the San Diego Chargers.

Nobody said life was fair.

But Perry, who weighed 377 pounds last spring, is currently locked away in a hospital trying to lose weight. A waist is a terrible thing to mind.

Doug Flutie, one inch shorter than his brother, is fighting for a spot as a backup quarterback on the New England Patriots. It is probably his last chance in the NFL.

Keys was talking to former Bear cornerback Leslie Frazier the other day. Frazier had been talking to Chicago linebacker Mike Singletary. Singletary, Frazier told Keys, said Perry had been wondering about Keys. “Man,” Singletary quoted Perry as saying, “I sure miss Tyrone.”

Keys and Perry had been inseparable before Madison Avenue discovered Perry was worth his weight in gold.

“I got kinda attached to Fridge,” said Keys, who would work out at a local gym with Perry every night after practice. “He was down and out and didn’t have any friends because of what Buddy (Ryan) had said. I told him everything would work out. And everything did.”

Until the off-seasons. According to Bear Coach Mike Ditka, every time Perry returned home to rural Aiken, “the chicken population of South Carolina declined drastically.”

Now Perry has agreed to be treated for an eating disorder.

“The thing about life is that it’s a long, long road,” Keys said. “You have to keep on pumping. Fridge is at a stalemate now, but I feel he’ll overcome it.”

But what’s the real William Perry like?

“He was always joking, and he would always make fun of other fat people,” Keys said. “He never considered himself a big man. When we played basketball, he would always play point guard. He never looked at being big as a handicap.”

Doug Flutie went one step further. He used his lack of size to his advantage. He was 5-9. So he tried harder.

Darren Flutie tried hard, too. But the comparisons to Doug were unavoidable, unceasing and often unfair.

“As you go through school, people would say, ‘Well, your older brother did it this way, he did it that way. He’s such a good kid. You’re such a juvenile, a brat.’ That’s what I got when I was growing up. I’m different from Doug in a lot of ways.”

Don’t get him wrong, Darren Flutie says. He never tires of talking about his brother, Doug.

“I’m proud of him,” he says. But Darren is also proud of his oldest brother, Bill, who graduated from Brown University with a degree in electrical engineering. “Smart kid,” he says.

The hardest part of being Darren Flutie right now has nothing to do with being Doug’s brother. Doctors recently found a malignant tumor in one of his father’s kidneys.

At first they thought it was kidney stones. Then, last week, Darren Flutie got a call saying his father had cancer.

“The day I heard it was worse than they thought was pretty tough,” he said. “I didn’t want to go to practice. I wanted to go home.”

But he didn’t tell anybody here about it.

“The coaches don’t know,” he said.

Not too many people know that Keys once covered former Cowboy running back Tony Dorsett one-on-one in a regular-season game at Texas Stadium in 1985. The Bears won that day, 44-0. It was the worst home loss in Dallas history.

And, said Keys, “every time (Dallas quarterback) Danny White looked for Tony Dorsett, he couldn’t find him.”

For his efforts that day, Ryan gave Keys a game ball. But Perry got all the attention when officials penalized him at the goal line for trying to pick up running back Walter Payton and heave him into the end zone.

“Too Tall” is the nickname Ryan pasted onto Keys because he reminded Ryan of Dallas defensive lineman Ed (Too Tall) Jones. “Too short” is a phrase the Flutie brothers stopped listening to long ago.

“Darren Flutie is a better football player than his brother, Doug,” said one Charger official last week.

Tyrone Keys is a healthier, more disciplined football player than his pal, Heartbreak Fridge.

That will have to do for now. Darren Flutie and Tyrone Keys will take their consolation where they can find it.