Detractors Can’t Deny Little Guys Their Big Day

T he NFL Insider . . .

Flutie Expose. Now, at last, the world knows why the Chicago Bears hate Doug Flutie, why they ran him out of Chicago, the City of Big Shoulders With Big Chips.

On a TV show Sunday, several Bears revealed the true character of Flutie, the devious and diabolical midget. Seems that the sawed-off signal caller tried to weasel his way into the Bears’ starting lineup by accepting dinner invitations from Coach Mike Ditka.

As one Bear revealed, Flutie and Ditka actually dined together once at Ditka’s restaurant! (Excited italics mine!) And they didn’t even stop at Jim McMahon’s restaurant for an after-dinner hot chocolate!

Obviously Flutie, the effete enfant , never made an attempt to be one of the Bear boys. Never once asked McMahon to teach him how to sneer, mumble, bang helmets with linemen or drop his pants for photographers. No, Flutie was too busy going to Thanksgiving dinner at Ditka’s actual house! The National Enquirer, I’ve heard, has photos.

Fortunately, the players saw right through Flutie the Cutie, saw that he was nothing more than a football version of Robin Givens.

Sure, Flutie flung 4 touchdown passes over and through the Bears Sunday in a 30-7 Patriot victory. But at least the Bears could hold their heads high, knowing that they had been too sharp to be sucked in by the half-pint’s half-baked high jinks.

End-Zone Atrocities. Have you noticed how much more sophisticated pro football has become since the National Football League outlawed touchdown celebrations?

Sunday, Miami was penalized 5 yards when wide receiver Mark Clayton, after catching a touchdown pass, leaped and dunked the ball over the crossbar.

It’s stuff like this that was ruining the game.

Of course, a 5-foot 9-inch midget in full football gear dunking over a crossbar that’s the same height as a basketball rim was one of the amazing athletic feats of the day. But, obviously, we can’t let players get away with this type of behavior.

If we did, NFL football would sink to the level of major league baseball, in which every time a guy pitches a gem to win the World Series or hits a ninth-inning pinch-hit home run, he jumps up and down or smiles or pumps his fist. What kind of role-modeling is that?

So what if the NFL’s officials are so preoccupied trying to determine whether a touchdown celebration is spontaneous or choreographed that they sometimes blow other calls? But you can bet we won’t have to put up with Clayton’s shenanigans anymore.

Maul Ball. Mike Lansford is a peach of a guy, and I was happy for him when he single-footedly beat the New Orleans Saints Sunday. His job requires incredible nerve and skill.

Still, shouldn’t a football team be required to do something more than kick the ball 4 times to be proclaimed the winner of a game?

The league should eliminate those penalties for “roughing the kicker,” “running into the kicker” and “yelling mean things about the kicker’s mother.”

If we allowed defensive players to sack the kicker or punter, as they are allowed to sack the quarterback, kicking plays would at least become mildly exciting.

The wimp element would argue that kickers need to be protected because with one leg high in the air they are vulnerable to crippling injuries.

That’s stupid. The kicker is no more vulnerable to injury in his follow-through than is the passing quarterback. Explain to me why a vicious, steroid-crazed defender is allowed carte blanche against the quarterback but cannot so much as graze the shoulder pad of a kicker.

If we allowed kicker sacks, it would result in an epidemic of busted legs, concussions, skewered kidneys, ruptured spleens, and knee cartilage and ligaments turned to confetti and spaghetti.

Just like quarterbacks.

Isn’t that what the game is all about?

Eric the Eloquent. At least Eric Dickerson isn’t bitter and vindictive.

A year after the Anaheim Rams gave him his wish and traded him to a team that would pay him what he is worth, Dickerson, in a TV interview, said:

--Jim Everett was never his pal.

--Greg Bell is a “little dwarf.”

--If Eric ever comes upon John Robinson in the act of drowning, “John’s on his own.”

--The greatest running back in NFL history is--the envelope, please!--guess who!

Hint: It’s not John Robinson running 47-Gap.

I was in Dickerson’s corner when he purposely acted like a colossal jerk to force the Rams to trade him. It was an effective strategy. I didn’t realize the condition would become permanent.

I guess it’s like when you’re a kid and you make a crazy face and your mom warns you that the expression might freeze on your face.

All Robinson ever did for Dickerson was make a risky trade to get him, sending the proven Wendell Tyler to the San Francisco 49ers; give Dickerson a full-time job, something he didn’t have in college; design an entire offense around him; overlook devastating fumbles, and talk Eric up to the media like a latter-day Zeus.

For all that, Eric bids John to sleep with the fishes.

In retrospect, in terms of building team character and morale, the Rams’ trading of Dickerson ranks right up there with the Dodgers’ trading of Pedro Guerrero.

There is hope for Dickerson. If he carries a grudge the way he carries a football, he will, at an opportune moment, drop it.