Chargers Ready for Beathard : Ex-Redskin GM Is Favored to Be Spanos’ Choice

When the San Diego Chargers honored retired quarterback Dan Fouts at a game last year, the frustrated fans booed owner Alex Spanos.

Don’t be surprised if they wind up cheering Spanos this year. After a 6-10 season, he’s had as good an off-season as any owner in the National Football League. In an era of transition, he may be destined to become one of the league’s major figures.

He’s proving to be about as slick as the police inspector in “Casablanca” who said--while pocketing his winnings--he was “shocked” to find gambling going on at Rick’s.

Spanos had a similar reaction a week ago when Bobby Beathard announced he was resigning as Washington Redskins general manager.

“I had no idea he was resigning,” Spanos said. “This comes as a shock to a lot of people.”

Spanos recovered from his shock to announce he was interested in talking to Beathard when his Redskins contract expires May 31.

Spanos should have little trouble getting Beathard to sign to run the Chargers. After all, Beathard has a home near San Diego and wants to live there.

That will be only part of what has been a busy off-season for Spanos. Four months ago, he hired former Redskins assistant Dan Henning to be his head coach. It so happens that Beathard said at his farewell news conference that he made his decision to leave the Redskins four months ago.

Spanos insists that’s coincidence. He and Beathard have denied they already have talked.

Regardless, Spanos already has a coach who’s comfortable with Beathard and the Redskins’ system. All he has to do to turn the Chargers into the Washington of the West is to get Beathard on board--especially if a couple of Beathard’s top scouts follow him to San Diego.

Imagine Beathard in San Diego in the AFC West, a division that does not have a dominant team. The Seattle Seahawks won the division last season with nine victories. The Chargers won six last season, so it wouldn’t take much improvement for them to get in the race.

As the pieces fall into place, Spanos seems ready to play another scene from “Casablanca.” This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The main item on the agenda at the NFL owners meeting this week in New Orleans is picking the northern site for Super Bowl XXVI in 1992.

Seattle, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Detroit are the four northern cities with domed stadiums seeking the game. Since Minneapolis was slow getting organized and Detroit had the other northern Super Bowl in 1981, Seattle and Indianapolis are considered the front-runners.

Before the Nordstrom family sold the team a year ago, Seattle was considered the solid favorite. But since new Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring doesn’t have any chits out, Indianapolis is given a good shot, although Indianapolis Colts owner Bob Irsay isn’t in the league’s inner circle, either.

Indianapolis officials have a good chance, but they’re worried there may be a backlash from the five-year, $2,545,000 contract the Colts gave wide receiver Andre Rison, the draft’s 22nd pick, a week ago.

Last year, the 22nd pick, Houston Oilers running back Lorenzo White, got $1,210,000 for three years, or about $400,000 a year. Rison averaged $500,000 a year, which means the agents for the players picked ahead of him are going to argue for salaries much larger than those given to players picked in similar spots last year. The result is likely to be mass holdouts of first-round players.

The Colts say they paid Rison well because they had him rated among the top 10 players in the draft.

There apparently was one more reason. The Colts seem to believe the addition of Rison will make them a great team. “They think they’re going to the Super Bowl now,” said one general manager. The Colts went 9-7 last year after a 1-5 start.

The Colts will find out quickly if they’re as good as they think they are. They open the season against the Super Bowl champion San Francisco 49ers and the Rams.

Herbert J. Belgrad, chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority, said he will not lobby in New Orleans for an expansion team for Baltimore because the meeting is expected to be very short.

But he said he’ll attend the fall meeting in October (the site hasn’t been set) to remind owners of Baltimore’s interest.

Although Mike Lynn, Minnesota Vikings general manager and a member of the long-range planning committee, favors moving ahead now on expansion, the matter is on hold until a commissioner is selected to succeed the retiring Pete Rozelle.

Tex Schramm, former Dallas Cowboys president and current head of the new International Football League, will be in Europe this week to check on the interest of European television in the spring league.

Schramm, who calls the NFL “the other league,” said he’s likely to have teams in New York, Montreal and Mexico City. Six more will be in Europe, and the final three are likely to be in the South in cities that don’t have baseball teams. Chicago, however, is being considered.

Schramm said Jacksonville, Fla.; San Antonio; Orlando, Fla.; Birmingham, Ala.; and Nashville, Tenn., have shown the most interest. Schramm also is interested in Memphis, Tenn., although that city is focusing more on getting an expansion team.

Schramm said, though, that a city that does well in the IFL would be helped in its expansion bid. “It’ll have a leg up on the cities that stand aside,” he said.