Vlasic Wondering If He Can Get Back to Where He Was

Mark Vlasic was little more than halfway through his second start as the Charger quarterback last November when his season abruptly ended.

His left knee buckled under the weight of Ram defensive lineman Shawn Miller.

The seriousness was so clear that the diagnosis and prognosis were done on the field. X-rays merely confirmed what Vlasic already had been told.

An operation would be needed to repair torn knee ligaments and cartilage damage, with about six months of rehabilitation to follow.

Nearly nine months after that Nov. 20 game, Vlasic still is waiting to regain his place on the football field. He took another small step this week, donning pads for the first time since the operation. But how much longer it will be before Vlasic is back competing for the starting job he held so briefly, yet productively, he is not so sure.

“Every day it gets a little stronger,” Vlasic said. “I don’t think it will be too much longer before I am out there. I hope to be out there competing by the last two exhibition games.”

Still, there are questions. Trying to come back on a rebuilt knee has moments of doubt, especially on those days when the tightness and soreness grow worse.

“It feels like it gets a little stronger every day,” Vlasic said. “Then, sometimes, I come back the next day to practice, and it doesn’t feel as good as the other day. That makes me think maybe it’s going to take a little longer than I think.”

The danger is that Vlasic will rush his recovery and do himself more damage in the end. That is what he fears he did by attempting too much in the team’s mini-camp in May. Vlasic said he made a mistake by throwing then.

“I should not have been out there,” Vlasic said. “But being competitive, you don’t want to stand around; you want to be out there doing it. That was what I was trying to do. That wasn’t someone else saying go out and throw, that was me. But I don’t want to get caught up in that same situation now.”

It would be easy for that to happen all over. With a new coaching staff led by Dan Henning, Vlasic feels a little extra pressure to perform.

“They don’t know me, and I don’t know them,” Vlasic said. “We’re in a situation where everyone is getting accustomed to one another.

“It wasn’t until late in the season that I was used last year. From the outside, maybe it looks like they didn’t have anything to lose, so they threw me in there. I don’t know if they look at that way or not. But I felt I was ready, and when I got the chance, I made the best of it. Now it is just a matter of going out and proving it again.”

But making matters more difficult, Vlasic has had to sit and watch two new arms come into camp--those of David Archer and Billy Joe Tolliver.

Archer is a favorite of Henning’s, having started 22 games for him in 1985-86 when Henning was the coach in Atlanta. And Tolliver is the latest candidate for quarterback of the future, the Chargers having traded up to take him in the second round of the 1989 draft.

Those two join Mark Malone, who started the final four games after Vlasic’s injury, winning two, as Vlasic’s competition. Vlasic only wishes he knew when the competition could begin.

“That is the toughest thing,” Vlasic said. “You are out watching, but you want to get out and be competing. Yet, you don’t want to put yourself at a disadvantage because you are not at full strength.

“Finally, it comes to the point where you have waited long enough; you have to get in there. You have got to go in and show somebody you can do the job. It is just frustrating now not being able to do that.”

The injury is a frustrating setback to a career that was just beginning to deliver on some of its promise.

When the Chargers drafted Vlasic, 6-feet-3, 203 pounds, out of Iowa in the fourth round in 1987, he was billed as a likely successor to Dan Fouts. He spent all but the final quarter of Fouts’ farewell season on the bench. His lone appearance came in a game played in a blizzard in Denver.

Vlasic started 1988 as a backup to off-season acquisitions Babe Laufenberg and Malone. Not until after the Chargers opened the season by losing eight of their first 10 games did Vlasic get his chance. He responded by completing 16 of 32 passes for 190 yards in leading the Chargers to a 10-7 victory in Atlanta. The next week in Anaheim Stadium, the Chargers were leading, 24-14, late in the third quarter on their way to a 38-24 victory when Vlasic went down.

Before the injury, he had completed nine of 20 passes for 80 yards and his first National Football League touchdown pass--a four-yarder to wide receiver Quinn Early, a former teammate at Iowa.

“To have the opening and then to lose it after (the injury), that is frustrating,” Vlasic. “I missed out on four games. I could have that much more experience under my belt, then it might have been a different situation coming into training camp than it is.”

The injury did more than affect Vlasic’s knee, it adversely affected his throwing motion.

“The toughest thing was stepping from the plant foot over to the left foot and not being able to follow through,” Vlasic said. “That was my biggest problem. I developed some bad habits when I wasn’t able to come straight over. I spent the whole time at mini-camp altering what I altered to get back throwing.

“Everybody talks about having a good arm, but if you use all arm, that sucker isn’t going to last but a quarter or so. You feel like when you are out there, you are doing fine. You can’t figure why the arm is so sore. Why you can’t get the zip on the ball two days in a row. You go back to watch it on the film, and you realize the mechanics aren’t there.”

Vlasic has been injured before--a separated shoulder forced him to miss three games in his senior year at Iowa--but nothing like this.

“You expect to get out of the hospital and be able to go out and do what you were before and do it do the same level,” Vlasic said. “But here it is eight months later, and I’m still working on some mechanics. It is not what it used to be, and it might never be the same.”

Charger Notes

Coach Dan Henning said that he would today announce his starting quarterback for Sunday’s noon exhibition game against Dallas at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. . . . Add Dennis McKnight to the list of injured Charger centers. McKnight, an eight-year pro who has been switched to center after starting at right guard last season, said he had his right knee drained by Dr. Gary Losse Wednesday night after it swelled up following the afternoon practice. McKnight said Losse removed blood from the knee but said there did not appear to be any ligament or cartilage damage. He said Loose told him he might have hyperextended it.