Next Fouts May Be Alive and Well--and Living With Saints
The search to replace retired Charger quarterback Dan Fouts, the future Hall-of-Famer, never ends.
Babe Laufenberg, who will start for the Chargers against New Orleans today at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, is not the next Dan Fouts. Neither is his understudy, Mark Malone. That has been known from the beginning.
For that matter, Laufenberg and Malone will tell you they are not the next Fouts. Charger Coach Al Saunders will say the same.
Strangely enough, the Chargers are better off for that fact. If Fouts had stuck around one more season, he would have been a target. Right guard Dennis McKnight is the only remaining starter from last year’s offensive line. The latest casualty was center Don Macek, who underwent shoulder surgery last week. His replacement today will be Dan Rosado, the Chargers’ center during the 1987 players’ strike.
Opposing defenses would have murdered Fouts if he had played this year. He was not a scrambler. “We are a young offensive football team that hasn’t matured in the least in terms of being able to handle a lot of things that go on on the field during the game,” Saunders says.
“The Chargers are new and they’re young,” says Saints’ Coach Jim Mora. “It takes time. People expect too much of young players.”
Like Fouts, Saints’ quarterback Bobby Hebert, 28, isn’t a pure scrambler either. But he is nimble and quick. And, like Fouts, he is accurate. There are other differences. Fouts was born in San Francisco, the city by the bay. Hebert was born in Galliano (La.), the city by the bottle.
But, Saunders says, “Bobby Hebert reminds us a lot of Dan when Dan was developing.”
So it has come to this for a team that has struggled mightily to a 2-3 record? The Chargers must now confront the fact that the next Dan Fouts is a New Orleans Saint?
“I’m not ready to say that yet,” says Mora, a man who spent four years as a defensive assistant in Seattle trying to figure out ways to stop Fouts. “It would be nice to be able to say that. But Bobby’s only been in this league three years. Dan was around so long.”
The Saints (4-1) provide Hebert with a precious commodity Fouts rarely enjoyed--defense. Only four NFC teams have allowed fewer yards. Their left outside linebacker, Rickey Jackson, has six sacks. The Charger linebackers have a total of one.
New Orleans has allowed just 15 points a game since its season-opening, 34-33 loss to San Francisco. The Saints have won all four games since then, the second-longest winning streak in the sorry, 22-year history of the franchise.
“Sorry” because until last year (12-3) the Saints had never finished a season with a winning record. “Every time we didn’t win a game, we were always referred to as the ‘hapless Saints,’ ” Mora says. “Last year finally got us over that hurdle.”
Positive momentum and Hebert’s continued improvement are the primary reasons the Saints are tied for first in the NFC West with San Francisco and the Rams.
Most recently, New Orleans has played a conservative defense--one that relies on personnel more than scheme. Part of that philosophy is embodied in all the zone pass defense the Saints play.
“They remind me of a young New York Giant ballclub,” Dallas running back Herschel Walker said after the Saints beat the Cowboys, 20-17, last Monday night.
Frankly, the Chargers are hoping New Orleans doesn’t change a thing. In two of their three losses this year the Chargers didn’t score a touchdown. The opponent both times was Denver, a team that disguises its fronts and coverages more than most.
Last week, the Chargers didn’t score a point in their 12-0 loss to the Broncos. They rushed for 20 yards. All day. “We stubbed our toe,” is the way Saunders put it.
“I hope they don’t look at that film too long,” Laufenberg says. “But you never know. They may come in this week and figure we’ve got a lot of young guys. They may dog (blitz) us.”
The Chargers have scored just five offensive touchdowns in five games. And Laufenberg is acutely aware that he might be running out of chances as a starter. Without directly attacking his teammates, it’s hard for him to defend his sub-par statistics that too often are the result of another player’s mistake.
“I can only play my position,” Laufenberg says. “I can’t do anything about the other facets of the game. You can’t make plays without people making plays around you. All I can say is I’m one of 11 guys.”
And he is not Dan Fouts.
Charger Notes
The Chargers have never lost to New Orleans in their three meetings. Tampa Bay (0-3) is the only other team in the league that has never beaten the Chargers. . . . New Orleans rookie Craig “Ironhead” Heyward, a No. 1 draft choice, has carried 37 times for 127 yards and is third on the team in rushing. “You can’t expect too much from rookies,” Saints Coach Jim Mora says. The Saints list Heyward at 5-feet 11-inches, 251 pounds. The Chargers liked him lot in the period leading up to the 1988 draft, but they liked wide receiver Anthony Miller more. They made Miller the 15th player selected. New Orleans got Heyward on the 24th pick . . . Babe Laufenberg, the Charger quarterback, served briefly as a backup for the Saints in 1986 when regular Bobby Hebert was injured.