Redskins’ 5-Foot-8 Corners Won’t Allow Themselves to Be Sold Short

The Washington Redskins’ brand-new starting pair of pint-sized cornerbacks survived Randall Cunningham last Sunday.Few thought they’d survive training camp, so their ascension to first string is truly surprising.

One of them, 5-foot-8 Anthony Johnson, is a particularly bold rookie. Regular starter Darrell Green used to gather the secondary in a semicircle before every practice and deliver a pep talk or entertaining story, and naturally the get-together was canceled the day after Green dislocated his wrist. But 22-year-old Johnson jutted out his chest the second day and said, “Come on, come on. Everybody up, everybody up.”

Nobody budged. “He thinks he’s Vince Lombardi,” said free safety Todd Bowles. “But no one pays him any mind.”

The other cornerback, 5-8 Martin Mayhew, used to telephone his broker during lulls in training camp. Mayhew successfully partnered Deion Sanders in the Florida State secondary two years ago, but lasted through the 10th round of the 1988 draft because some teams thought he preferred banking to football. The son of a school principal, he actually prefers law. “I’m really thinking about going to law school,” he said. “But, hey, I want to play as long as I can.”

Few felt these two would be administering bump-and-run technique for the Redskins in November, but a series of circumstances has left them starters with Denver’s John Elway looming Monday night. Green and Brian Davis began the year at the corners, but Green’s injury against Tampa Bay -- coupled with Johnson’s tender ankle -- left Barry Wilburn starting opposite Davis.

Wilburn then went inactive two weeks ago after sources said he had tested positive for cocaine. That elevated Johnson, and Mayhew was then promoted over a struggling Davis last week. “I wouldn’t have predicted this,” secondary coach Emmitt Thomas said.

The most amazing fact is that the Redskins were the NFL’s 26th-rated secondary before all-pro Green went down, and now rank 17th. Thomas and others say a lot has to do with Washington’s improved pass rush (Manley had three sacks Sunday). Moreover, the secondary has operated the last three weeks against ineffective quarterbacks -- the Raiders’ Jay Schroeder (after Steve Beuerlein burned them early), Dallas’s Steve Walsh and Philadelphia’s Cunningham.

Cunningham, a threat to pass and run, is certainly no lightweight, and Johnson and Mayhew’s coverage was sticky enough. But without dangerous wide receiver Mike Quick, Cunningham throws more to his running backs, and the Redskins’ offense kept the defense fresh by possessing the ball 37 minutes.

Nonetheless, it was Johnson’s second league start and Mayhew’s first, and it seems incomprehensible that they helped hold Cunningham to 177 yards passing considering he threw for 447 against the unit including Green and Davis in Week 2.

Davis may yet have his day. First he was losing jump balls to receivers (New York’s Odessa Turner, notably) and then he was burned by pinpoint passes (to Phoenix’s J.T. Smith, prominently). Only Green is faster, only Green can anticipate better, but Davis was benched last week for Mayhew.

Redskins coaches will continue to deploy Davis in a nickel-back role with the hope that an interception or two will improve his confidence.

That’s not a problem with Johnson, who’s garrulous and unafraid. On one Eagles run play Sunday, he decked Keith Byars at the line and asked defensive signal-caller Bowles to let him take on more runners. “He wanted more force calls, and Todd didn’t give him any,” Mayhew said.

Said Bowles: “Like his 100 pounds against Byars would work every time. You just had to laugh. He’s a clown. He reminds me of Darrell Green a little bit, the way he acts. He’s always saying something funny. It’s his first year, and he’s starting, and he keeps it fun for me.”

With a little more seniority, Johnson could be accepted as a leader, given his tendencies. While playing at Southwest Texas State, he and a teammate were lined up on the right side to block a field goal but Johnson saw the opponents were a man short on the left side, so he dragged his partner to the other side and blocked the kick from over there. “Good to hear,” Redskins special-teams coach Wayne Sevier said.

Mayhew is 24, but silent and thoughtful. After studying his Redskins playbook, he crams for the Law School Admissions Test he’ll take in January. His goal, besides starting these last six games, is a career in corporate law.

Drafted last year by Buffalo, he fractured a wrist and spent the entire season on injured reserve. The Bills left him unprotected following the season, but he said they begged him to stay. Being a finance major, he took Washington’s generous offer of a $65,000 signing bonus instead.

With the money, he said he did the following: bought a three-month certificate of deposit and three months later turned it into a land purchase with his father in Fort Lauderdale; bought two mutual funds; bought a stereo; bought his mother a car after hers caught fire; put the rest in a money-market account.

He’s good with numbers, and fortunately he curtailed wide receiver Ron Johnson’s totals on Sunday. He was beaten on one fly pattern by Carlos Carson, mistiming his leap for the ball, but escaped when Carson dropped it. Cunningham completed a total of three passes on him.

A native of Tallahassee, he was not widely known in high school. At Florida State, Sanders got by on speed, Mayhew on never-ending work. Their only loss in 1987 was to Miami when Michael Irvin raced by Mayhew for a key touchdown, but the introspective Mayhew never pouted. “There probably aren’t two people in the world who thought he could play pro ball,” his Seminoles secondary coach, Mickey Andrews, said. “There probably aren’t two that thought he could play college. But Martin was one of them.”

The greatest challenge for loud Johnson and quiet Mayhew is now Elway on Monday night. “We’ll know better this week,” Thomas said.