Malone Has to Look Over His Shoulder Again : He Has Gone From Charger Backup to Starter, but Competition Is in the Wings

You’re Mark Malone and you’re frustrated.

You’ve spent 8 years trying to get out from under the shadow of Terry Bradshaw. When you finally do, you find yourself playing second fiddle to Babe Laufenberg.

Babe Laufenberg?

That’s right. After being traded last spring from the Pittsburgh Steelers back home to San Diego, where you were a high school star in three sports, you naturally assumed you’d be the Chargers’ starting quarterback, since the job was wide open. Instead, they gave it to Laufenberg, a journeyman in the National Football League who can match Billy Martin, pink slip for pink slip.

So, you gritted your teeth, picked up a clipboard and waited your turn. You waited 6 games, serving as a backup during that agonizing period.

Finally, the call came. Laufenberg was suffering from bruised ribs and the Chargers were suffering, period.

So you were given the starting job against the Miami Dolphins and responded with the best offensive performance of San Diego’s season with 25 completions in 38 attempts for 294 yards and 2 touchdowns, along with 2 interceptions.

Still the Chargers lost that day, 31-28, and, with you in the starting role, have lost the 2 played since. They went 8 quarters without scoring until you broke the drought against the Seattle Seahawks in the fourth quarter last week.

You’ll still be the starter Sunday, when your team plays host to the Raiders, but already a new shadow is creeping up on you, that of second-year man Mark Vlasic. This is a kid who threw only 6 passes last season after joining the team as a fourth-round draft choice, yet your coach talks about him as if he could be the key to the future.

Said Charger Coach Al Saunders: “We feel it’s important to give Mark (that’s Vlasic, not Malone) an opportunity, so at the end of the year, we are not in the same situation we were in at the beginning of this year in terms of not really knowing exactly what he can do. We would like to be able to evaluate him so that when we go into the draft next year, we have a better understanding of where we are with him.”

Doesn’t exactly sound as if they are building their future around Malone, does it?

“Nothing has been said to me about it,” responded Malone to talk of Vlasic moving into a starting role. “This is nothing against Mark, but I don’t think a change at this position is necessarily going to change anything at this point. I feel the problem is an overall problem. It’s not one individual player.

“What I’m doing I don’t think is necessarily responsible for us going one way or another, to tell you the truth. If they want to give him an opportunity, that’s their decision.”

He hasn’t done enough about it on the field. Malone will start the game with a 67.1 rating, ninth best in the American Football Conference. He has completed 55.8% of his passes with 4 going for touchdowns, but 5 others going for interceptions.

“He’s played better than anticipated,” Saunders said. “He’s had some balls dropped and, unfortunately, that shows up in the statistics as quarterback error.

“As we all know, there are more things to completing passes than just the ability of the quarterback to throw. There are 10 people on that offense that start who weren’t here starting last year. There has been a tremendous changeover in personnel. We have a new offensive coordinator, a new offensive system much like the Raiders are going through right now.

“It takes a little while to adjust to those kinds of things, but Mark has not been a disappointment in any way, shape or form.”

But then, when you’re at the bottom, any direction is up and Malone was definitely at the bottom last season in Pittsburgh with a 46.7 quarterback rating, worst in the league. It was the culmination of 8 rough years with the Steelers for Malone, only 1 of which ended with more touchdown passes than interceptions.

And the abuse he took on the field often paled to what he endured off the field from angry fans who were used to finishing their seasons in the Super Bowl. That was during the ‘70s under Bradshaw, not the ‘80s under Malone.

He could have picked an easier act to follow.

“I think you could probably say that about myself, the people who preceded me and the people after me,” Malone said. “I think that’s safe to say with those fans back there. Forget it, until they win another Super Bowl. Then the expectation is for that person to win another three. It’s a tough place to play.

“People who are not very knowledgeable about the game of football think that Terry was the savior and the guy who did it all. He was a great quarterback and I give him a lot of credit. He succeeded where a lot of people hadn’t. He was part of four world championship football teams. But a lot of that, or most of it, happened to be the people he had around him, not only on offense, but the kind of defense they played.”

Still, the fans in Pittsburgh were not sympathetic toward Malone. The common sentiment about him was colorfully expressed by Paul Gereffi, a Steeler fan who wrote this to the Pittsburgh Press:

“I propose the following change in pro football terminology. . . . In the future, an errant throw such as a bounced, overthrown, behind-the-back or otherwise uncatchable pass shall be known as a ‘malone.’ If the ‘malone’ occurs in a crucial situation . . . or results in an interception, it shall be known as a ‘markmalone.’ ”

Then there was the fan who drove his car into Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium one day and smashed it into a vat of nacho cheese.

That’s incredible? That’s only the beginning.

In a performance that only Leon Spinks could envy, this mad motorist managed to make his way up ramps all the way to the third level, where he left his car. He then made his way down to the 50-yard line where police found him kicking field goals without a football.

And what, the police asked, could possibly have motivated such erratic behavior?

Replied the man: “Mark Malone.”

So if you’re Malone and that’s the kind of asylum you’re coming from, San Diego doesn’t look so bad. Bring on the Babe. And Vlasic, too.

Terry Bradshaw they are not. But then, so far, neither is Mark Malone.