Chargers Still Covet Aikman, Ponder Options

Enough of this palaver. Who will the Chargers pick Sunday with the eighth selection in the first round of the NFL draft?

“We might not be picking eighth,” new Charger Coach Dan Henning said Wednesday, making the picture clear as mud.

Enter Steve Ortmayer, the team’s director of football operations, in an attempt to clarify.

Ortmayer said Wednesday he didn’t consider his team’s overtures to Dallas for the rights to draft UCLA quarterback Troy Aikman with the first pick to be a dead issue. “Despite the headline writers, we are interested in making that deal,” he said.

Ortmayer was referring to local media reaction earlier in the week after he said he didn’t expect Dallas to trade the rights to Aikman.

“I don’t think that door is closed,” Ortmayer said Wednesday. “Although it appears to be.”

Ortmayer reiterated the Chargers have no interest in trading up for any player other than Aikman.

So what about trading down?

“I can only see us moving back if somebody makes us an offer we can’t refuse,” Ortmayer said. “Somebody like a player that can be plugged in right now.”

Somebody, perhaps, such as Mike Merriweather, Pittsburgh outside linebacker. Merriweather, a contract holdout in 1988, was the Steelers’ defensive MVP in 1987. Ortmayer admitted Wednesday for the first time that the Chargers have talked to the Steelers about Merriweather.

But Merriweather is asking for more than a million dollars a year. And it’s hard to imagine the Chargers giving up the eighth pick of the first round for an expensive and unhappy player. They tried it two years ago with Chip Banks and now have nothing to show for it; Banks is in drug rehab. Merriweather has never been connected with any drug problems.

If the Chargers don’t trade up or down, expect their selection to come from a pool of players that could include Nebraska linebacker Broderick Thomas, Florida free safety Louis Oliver, LSU linebacker Eric Hill, Pitt defensive end Burt Grossman and, possibly, Michigan State wide receiver Andre Rison.

The Chargers don’t need a wide receiver, and Rison probably won’t be on the board when the No. 8 pick arrives. Grossman kept a pet snake in his room in college, which has fed his reputation for being a flake. Plus there are rumors that his weight dropped as low as 250 recently, although Ortmayer says the Chargers weighed him in at 268 last week. “I don’t believe in rumors,” said Gunther Cunningham, Charger defensive line coach.

Oliver’s problem is that he doesn’t play cornerback, which is the position the Chargers really want to fill. The best cornerback in the draft is Florida State’s Deion Sanders, who almost certainly won’t be around when the Chargers’ turn comes. The next best corner is Clemson’s Donnell Woolford, who may be a “reach” with the eighth pick.

All of this could make Thomas and Hill the most likely candidates.

Meanwhile, a deal the Chargers began talking about last month with Atlanta and Washington may soon die of its own weight. The Chargers would surrender their first-round pick to Atlanta for running back Gerald Riggs, then ship Riggs to Washington for a package that would include either Mark Rypien or Stan Humphries (both backup quarterbacks), a reserve offensive lineman and a high draft pick.

“Nothing’s happening to my knowledge on that,” Ortmayer said.

Henning said he talked to Washington Coach Joe Gibbs Wednesday. But, Henning said, it had nothing to do with football. “Joe was out in the desert racing motorbikes,” Henning said. “I wanted to know why.”

Charger Notes

Charger Coach Dan Henning said Wednesday he doesn’t expect to know the latest status on tackle John Clay’s neck injury until “the first of next week.” . . . Quarterback Steve Fuller officially announced his retirement. Fuller, 32, was on the Chargers’ roster for the last four games of the 1988 season, although he did not play.