Cornerback Darrell Green--Humble Man in a Humbling Job

Twenty years from now, when Jared Green is 20 1/2, he may be quick and fast enough to play cornerback. But his father may talk him out of it.

“It’s a never-relaxing position,” said Washington Redskins cornerback Darrell Green. “You’re always vulnerable. And it doesn’t matter how great you were the week before.”

Besides, there won’t be any “vanilla” offenses left in the National Football League by the time Jared grows up.

There aren’t many now, Green said the other day. “Now there are so many mobile quarterbacks,” he said. “The receiver always has the advantage over us, for the simple reason that he knows where he’s going and we don’t.

“Now the mobile quarterback can buy that extra tick on the clock, and the receiver can make one more move.”

On Sunday at RFK Stadium, Philadelphia’s Randall Cunningham, the most mobile quarterback of them all, will be buying time while Green is paying attention (“and respect”) to wide receiver Mike Quick. The Redskins take on the Eagles Sunday afternoon.

Quick, a five-time Pro Bowler, has caught more touchdowns than anybody active in the NFC. He has caught at least one pass in every game he has played since Nov. 18, 1984, when Darrell Green shut him out. They know each other well.

“It is not a glamorous job,” Green said. “Yes, I enjoy it, because I am the most fortunate defensive back there is. I get to go against all the best receivers in the world: Jerry Rice, Roy Green, Mike Quick.

“Mike and I have become friends and we respect each other,” Green said. “Hey, Mike Quick can tear me up. I have to approach him with respect or I’ll get killed.”

In his seventh season, with three Pro Bowl elections behind him, Green finds an almost chivalrous respect between warriors between the lines.

“After the touchdown Monday night, the guy said, ‘That was your ball,’ ” Green reported. “He wanted me to know my coverage was good.”

The guy was the New York Giants’ Odessa Turner, who had a touchdown when Phil Simms’ 30-yard pass inexplicably went through Green’s hands on the goal line.

“A lot of times I say ‘great catch,’ or ‘good move,’ ” Green said. “No, I don’t have bad dreams about getting beat. Every cornerback who ever lines up is going to get beat. Mike Haynes, Ray Clayborn, all of them.

“For a guy my size (barely 5-foot-8, maybe 170) to make it, I have to dream big dreams, positive dreams.

“I do a good job of not taking negative things home,” Green said. “It would affect my home, and this is only my job. I am first a servant of God, second a husband and father.”

The Bible teaches of the uses of adversity, and Green has found value in the high visibility, and the sometimes unfairness, of cornerbacks’ embarrassments.

“Sometimes my speed brings me to a play (outside his responsibility) and they say, ‘Oh, he got beat.’ They don’t know what defense we were in. Linemen blow plays all the time and nobody says, ‘He got burned.’

“But it makes a good tool when I speak to the kids,” Green said. Besides his Darrell Green Foundation, he is active in Big Brothers and other youth programs in which he addresses age groups from age 7 to 18.

“I can walk off the field as ‘the guy who lost the game,’ ” Green said, “and know it’s not my fault. I would never blame somebody else, so what can I do?

“Beat my wife? Kill my dog? Give up?

“I think it’s the difference between being a great cornerback and a good one: the ability to be secure in who you are, not to be a different person because you got beat.

“So how about these kids?” Green said. “One who can’t talk well, one who doesn’t do well in school. Another who’s not handsome, doesn’t have good clothes.

“It’s not their fault either, I tell them. So what should they do? Put their head in the sand? Drop out of school? Take drugs, or drink alcohol?

“They’ve got to go on, and do their best. I think they get the message.”