Pro Football : Kickers Should Also Have to Be Like Regular Players

Soccer is the national game of Poland, England and most of the rest of the world--where it is called football.

American football, however, is still the national game here, at least in the fall.

And so the great irony of America’s sport, as played these days by National Football League teams, is that every time they score a touchdown--or fail to score in 3 downs near the goal line--they sit down and turn their game over to soccer players.

It happened again Sunday when, as usual, soccer-style kickers made or missed field goals to settle some of the day’s biggest events, including the one at Buffalo.

There, non-football players for both sides missed regulation-time field goals before one of them finally connected in overtime to win it for the Bills over the New York Jets, 9-6.

In a 6-3 defeat at Miami, a veteran soccer-styled kicker, Tony Franklin of the Dolphins, blew a 23-yard field goal in the fourth quarter, then walked off the field dodging cups of beer and souvenirs hurled by irate fans.

Stating the case for every soccer player who has kicked for an NFL team, Franklin, who was cut by the Dolphins Tuesday, said: “Over the years, I’ve gone from the penthouse to the outhouse and back to the penthouse. Now it’s the outhouse again.”

There’s only one way that the NFL could get back at Brazil and Portugal. In the World Cup matches next time, no goals should count unless an American is there to run the ball over the line.

It’s a world cup tournament, isn’t it?

Extra-point tries and field-goal tries are the dullest plays in American football today. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. There’s nothing to watch but a man swinging his foot, and they all swing it the same way.

Moreover, if a kicking team is even reasonably alert, kicks can’t be blocked. NFL coaches concede that every blocked extra point and 95% to 98% of the blocked field goals are kicking-team mistakes.

This leads to a question: Should the league change its scoring rules?

The best answer, probably, is no. The game needs a 3-point play in addition to touchdown plays. Nor should touchdowns be worth 7 points. A conversion point is useful.

What’s needed is an NFL rule requiring that all kickers be regular offensive or defensive players--as they were in the days when Lou Groza, Bob Waterfield and other starters doubled as kickers.

Most modern NFL teams play with about 16 offensive regulars and about 18 defensive regulars, including first-line situation players.

A rule that outlawed kicking by anyone else would be easy enough to enforce.

The thing that’s wrong now is that too many games are being decided by non-football players--by people who have no talent for what American football is all about: blocking, tackling, running, passing, catching.

On a typical day by the league’s non-football players, there were 15 missed field goals in 13 games Sunday.

Football players would miss more than that, of course--at least at first--but mistakes by football players are part of football.

Mistakes by soccer players should be confined to soccer.

Some New Yorkers who are closest to the Giants are saying that this is Lawrence Taylor’s last year as a starting linebacker.

One of the league’s best pass rushers, Taylor has always been comparatively weak against running plays to his side.

And in recent weeks, the Giants have seemed stronger in running situations with linebacker Johnnie Cooks in Taylor’s position.

Cooks came over this fall in a trade with Indianapolis, which drafted him first in 1982. The Giant plan apparently is to start him next year, and bring Taylor in on passing downs.

“We might (do that),” defensive coach Bill Belichik told Eastern writers.

Taylor declined to discuss it.

Coming up Sunday is the NFL’s game of the year, matching, in Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium, the two highest-ranking teams in the higher-ranking American Conference.

They are the Buffalo Bills (11-1) and Cincinnati Bengals (9-3).

“We had a great deal of difficulty stopping (Cincinnati’s) offense,” Dallas Coach Tom Landry said after a 38-24 loss Sunday. “It’s the best we’ve faced this season.”

Thus, with James Brooks running and Boomer Esiason passing to Eddie Brown, the Bengal offense will be half the story from Riverfront Stadium Sunday. The other half will be Buffalo’s defense.

“They’re physically strong, one of the top defensive teams,” Miami Coach Don Shula said.

Others say that the Bills are clearly the top defensive team this year with their aggressive, young front seven, whose leaders are linebackers Cornelius Bennett and Shane Conlan and end Bruce Smith.

The Bills, however, haven’t been playing the league’s toughest schedule. So far, the only first-class teams they have played are Chicago and Minnesota, and they have split with them.

Otherwise, their list of 1988 opponents is heavy with the likes of Green Bay, Tampa Bay, Miami, Seattle and Pittsburgh.

So this is challenge week for the Bills.

“It’s going to test our ability as far as being a football team,” said wide receiver Andre Reed, who has combined lately with quarterback Jim Kelly to make most of Buffalo’s big plays.

As a comparative NFL newcomer, Kelly himself is one of the team’s question marks. He has done everything asked of him this year, before and after Chicago stopped him, 24-3. But is he a Super Bowl quarterback?

Can the Bills even get there in this their first year of respectability since 1981?

Can any young, rising team become an instant champion in the NFL?

Some of the answers are waiting in Cincinnati.

On the anniversary of Bo Jackson’s biggest football game, the Raiders will take the league’s best Monday night record into Seattle next week.

Their comeback victory at Denver in October, 30-27, made the Raiders 26-5-1 in their 32 Monday night games.

In the last 12 months, the league has learned how to control Jackson, who has become a victim of 8-man defensive lines. As NFL coaches like to say, no back can run against a combination of eight linemen and linebackers.

Facing such a defense, the obvious requirement is a passing attack that shakes the other team into more conventional alignments.

But the offense that quarterback Steve Beuerlein was running for the Raiders Sunday looked a bit too complex for him to do that as a rookie.

This is a club that, for a while, may have to throw the ball quicker and shorter than it wants to.

Quote Department:

--Ron Meyer, Indianapolis coach, on losing another close game--at Minnesota, 12-3--and falling to 6-6 in the standings: “We’ve now played the top four defensive teams in the league--Chicago, Buffalo, Minnesota and Cleveland. I’d rather be close and frustrated than get the hell beat out of me.”

--Lindy Infante, Green Bay coach, noting that he’s tied at 2-10 with Dallas and Pittsburgh for worst in the league: “We don’t want the (draft’s) No. 1 pick. We’ll work hard to not have that No. 1 pick.”

--Tom Landry, Dallas coach, on losing to Cincinnati: “We didn’t win the close games we had earlier in the season (and) now we’re playing the best teams in the league.”

--Buddy Ryan, Philadelphia coach, on the Eagles’ immediate future now that they’ve tied Phoenix and the more mature Giants for first in the NFC East: “Most people think that being there before, a team that has the experience, will win.”

--Ryan on the leadership of quarterback Matt Cavanaugh and tight end Jimmie Giles: “A great thing about (them) is that both these guys are backups, yet leaders, which is very unusual.”

--Jerry Burns, Minnesota coach, on giving his players 4 days off this week--Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday--before and after Thursday’s game in Detroit: “Makes sense to me.”