If Billy Joe Is So Good, What Were the Chargers Waiting For?

Dan Henning was kidding, I think, when he walked into a conference room packed with writers and sportscasters and said: “This is more guys than we’ll have in camp.”

Indeed, the football season, in its own way, is about to begin. Training camp opens today for Charger rookies and free agents and a handful of veterans.

However, it was Thursday as Henning was talking, and a total of 21 players were still unsigned. In fact, none of the nine draft choices had yet signed.

Henning, about to begin his first year as the Chargers’ head coach, thus could be excused for wondering exactly what players he would be coaching.

Would this team with a ghost of a chance in the AFC West begin training with a ghost of a team?

It became obvious, once Henning had worked his way through the litany of camp procedures, that one position and one person concerned him most.

As you might have guessed, the position is quarterback. Anyone who has watched the Chargers since Dan Fouts retired could come to that conclusion.

And this year’s cast of characters at quarterback includes (a) the AFC’s lowest-ranked passer the past two years, (b) a promising youngster coming off a devastating knee injury, (c) a veteran who will answer no one’s prayers and (d) an untried rookie drafted near the bottom of the second round.

It was hard to imagine that any of these people would have dominated Henning’s pre-training camp observations.

But Billy Joe Tolliver, who comes under the heading of untried rookie, was the man of that hour.

Billy Joe Tolliver?

The impression I got from Henning is that there is no more pressing business for Steve Ortmayer, the director of football operations, than getting Billy Joe Tolliver under contract and into camp.

This is rather heady stuff when it is considered that Tolliver was not the first player the Chargers took in the draft. Burt Grossman was. Tolliver was not the second player the Chargers took in the draft. Courtney Hall was. And it was not that both of them already were signed, because neither was.

It also was noteworthy that stars such as Gary Anderson and Lionel James were unsigned, as were 10 other veterans.

Billy Joe Tolliver seems to be an obsession with the Chargers.

Why?

I can think of two possible reasons:

- He is a marvelously skilled quarterback who represents the future (and maybe even the present) of the franchise.

- The coaches are mortified at the prospect of trying to win (or even be respectable) with any of the other three.

The notion that this is a marvelously skilled “instant quarterback” is belied by the fact that he was the 51st player selected in the draft. If he is that good, there are 28 stupid teams in the National Football League. I include the Chargers, because it would have been stupid to let anyone that good slip past their first second-round selection.

It is a little more understandable that the Chargers would be, to say the least, greatly concerned about being competitive with bottom-ranked Mark Malone, rehabilitating Mark Vlasic or journeyman David Archer.

In contrast, almost anyone else looks prettier.

Is that Billy Joe Tolliver’s charm? Is he pretty or just prettier? Is he an answer just because everyone else is a question?

Regardless, Henning went on and on about the importance of Tolliver being at UC San Diego today. It was almost as if he was portraying Tolliver as a son who had gotten in with a bad crowd, the “bad influence” in this case being agent Vic Vines.

“I think Billy Joe will be making an error if he doesn’t come in here on time,” Henning said. “And his agent would be making a superior mistake if he doesn’t work things out.”

The agent, of course, represents only one side of the negotiating process. And Vines has been paying attention to all the rhetoric about just how wonderful the Chargers think his client might be. Coincidentally, I am sure he has hiked the price tag just a bit (maybe a big bit) in response.

The Chargers’ problem, as I see it, is that they now must pay the price for their own selling job.

Maybe they have been just a little bit overanxious and overzealous in their assessment of Billy Joe. Maybe they should have introduced him as a developmental project. Maybe they should have yawned and said the kid QB from Texas Tech would do a good job carrying the clipboard for a couple of years.

But maybe, just maybe, they were (and are) panicked over the quarterback situation. They don’t need someone to carry a clipboard. They desperately need someone who can carry the team, or at least move it.