Kenney Gets Chance to Play Third Fiddle

Joe Gibbs always has been known as an innovative coach, but he has outdone himself. He has divided an NFL game into thirds.

Four quarters are not viable for a coach who has three quarterbacks he wants to test, as Gibbs will Monday night in the Washington Redskins’ pre-season game at Minnesota. So Gibbs has broken the 60-minute game into thirds. Stan Humphries will play the first 20 minutes, Bill Kenney the middle 20 and Mark Rypien the final third.

Humphries and Rypien are young, but they have been around enough to become familiar with the Redskins, and vice versa. But Kenney -- who knows him?

There are mental images of him, and they are not particularly good ones. As a Kansas City Chief, he appeared in an occasional NFL highlight film, but usually it was the highlight film of the other team. There’s a faint recollection of a Pro Bowl appearance in 1983. There are more than 17,000 passing yards and numerous team single-season records. There even is longevity that makes him, at age 34, the oldest Redskin, nearly seven months the senior of Doug Williams.

But still, who knows who Bill Kenney really is? And why in the world, so close to the end of his career, is he here?

“I think the fans in Kansas City thought I was a nice guy, but not a great quarterback,” he said. “I had some good years, but when you don’t win. ... “

Kenney came to the Redskins last month as an insurance policy when Williams’s lower back began to ache. He eschewed an opportunity to be the No. 2 quarterback in Atlanta so he could become the No. 5 man here. He had never been with a winner before, save for one AFC wildcard game in 1986. You can’t overestimate the importance that holds for him.

“My objective has been to play with a team that I feel, selfishly, can get me to where I want to go, which is the playoffs, but on the other hand, that I can help,” he said. “I looked at the situation here and they offered the best of both those objectives.”

Kenney, who came out of Northern Colorado and joined the Chiefs as a free agent in 1979 after being cut by the Redskins, has a better sense of humor than one might expect of a quarterback on a hapless team.

“We were in the Hall of Fame the other day and the guys said: ‘Hey Bill, come here. Come here.’ Howie Long was the defensive lineman of the year in the Miller Lite display of, I think it was 1987. They have a bunch of pictures of me (being sacked by Long). I’ve also had comments from people on the Sports Illustrated Crunchman (advertisement) that I’m in there 50 percent of the time.”