Pain of Losing Hurts Laufenberg

Babe Laufenberg emerged from the training room bruised, bloodied and bandaged. His baptism to the National Football League finally was complete.

In his sixth season, with his fourth team, Laufenberg had finished his first start at quarterback Sunday.

Maybe the Chargers’ 24-13 season-opening loss to the Raiders at the Coliseum was all he could honestly have expected. Maybe a last-minute drive to win the game was too much to ask of Laufenberg and the Chargers. But something said there should have been more.

“This is not what I dreamed about when I laid in bed,” Laufenberg said.

Few players dream about lying on their backs on a training-room table after their first NFL start with an intravenous tube dripping into their arm. But that was how Laufenberg ended up.

He needed the infusion of fluids to help him recover from playing in temperatures that reached 108 degrees. He spent much of the second half trying to overcome the cramping in his calves that almost forced him out of the game.

The cramping started late in the third quarter and hung with Laufenberg for the rest of the game. Several times he limped around the field, and his diminished mobility made him vulnerable to the Raider pass rush.

Still, he unsteadily held his ground. He had waited too long for this opportunity; he wouldn’t be removing himself from the game.

“I told (the coaches), ‘Hey, I’m fine. I’m cramping, but if I cramp again, I’ll take myself out,’ ” Laufenberg said. “My calves were tight. I wasn’t as mobile as I once was, but I didn’t want to take myself out of the game at that point.”

Instead he stayed in and drove the Chargers 78 yards in 7 plays for their only touchdown and his first NFL touchdown pass. Laufenberg lofted a deep pass into the end zone that wide receiver Jamie Holland leaped high to catch to complete the 24-yard scoring play. The touchdown drew the Chargers to within 17-13 with 3:25 left in the game.

But as Laufenberg’s fate would have it, he never saw his memorable completion. After all those seasons of waiting, of playing the backup role, of facing being cut by Washington, New Orleans, Kansas City and even the Chargers once before, the least Laufenberg might have been able to do was watch his first NFL touchdown find its mark.

Instead he was flat on the ground, the result of a hit after he released the ball. Not only that, he didn’t even get a chance to run down and congratulate Holland. His cramping calves left him hobbling to the sideline.

“All I knew is everyone said he made a great catch,” Laufenberg said. “After I made the pass, I couldn’t run. Those spasms get so bad, you can’t even walk.”

For all his troubles, though, Laufenberg played better in the second half than he did in the first. He finished 17 of 29 for 195 yards. But he was 10 of 13 for 108 yards and a touchdown in the second half after ending the first half 7 of 16 for 87 yards with an interception. The interception helped lead to the first score of the game--an 11-yard run by Marcus Allen with 6:26 left in the half.

“Maybe I should have had the cramps in the first half,” Laufenberg said, jokingly. “I threw the ball better in the second half than in the first half when I wasn’t cramping.”

Laufenberg threw six incomplete passes in a row in the first half after opening the Chargers’ first series by completing his first passing attempt in an NFL game--a nine-yard gain to rookie wide receiver Anthony Miller. Laufenberg had played in a game with the Saints in 1986, but his game action consisted of taking two snaps from center and handing off the ball.

“I didn’t feel nervous in the first half,” Laufenberg said. “But it was my first start, and maybe subconsciously, I was nervous a little bit. My throws were just off a little bit and the receivers weren’t making the great catch. No one stepped up in the first half and made the big play.

“We were feeling our way into it early on. We were not firing into it. I didn’t throw the ball real well, but it wasn’t awful either.”

Charger Coach Al Saunders sensed the same problem.

“Early in the game, (Laufenberg) was not on target like I am sure he would like to be, but he settled down,” Saunders said.

Now that the novelty of his first NFL start is over, that is exactly what Laufenberg said he wants.

“Let’s get it out of the way,” Laufenberg said. “Now we can just talk about (playing) Denver.”

Just like that, Laufenberg pronounced his debut over. He had waited years for this chance, and he hardly had a moment to savor. So consumed by the task at hand, Laufenberg said he did not even see the 12 gold-and-silver, star-shaped balloons an apparent admirer had placed in his locker. Maybe he was still so sore from the several bruises around his hips and still drained from the heat to notice.

All he knew was his first start was over, his team did not win and there was another game next week.

“It happened so fast, I can’t tell you what happened,” he said. “If we had won, maybe it would have been different.”

So years from now, when the loss is but a footnote to his first start, what will Laufenberg remember about his day against the Raiders? Laufenberg struggled to find an answer.

“I felt like I played hard again,” he said. “But a lot of people play hard.”

He paused and tried again.

“I guess I’ll probably remember those cramps. I was dying.”