CHARGER NOTEBOOK : Vlasic, Friesz Get Quality Time, but Another Receiver Is Hurt
The Chargers came into their first preseason scrimmage Thursday night against the Rams at Capistrano Valley High School hoping to come home healthy and wanting to look at two of their least-experienced quarterbacks under pressure.
They accomplished half of that.
Mark Vlasic and John Friesz split time at quarterback, and both showed flashes of promise. But some of the excitement of the night was lost when free agent wide receiver Troy Johnson went down with possibly broken ribs.
Johnson, who was signed a few days before the start of training camp, was taken immediately to a hospital for X-rays.
Johnson, who has played with three teams in a four-year NFL career, is the second Charger receiver to be injured this week. Earlier, Wayne Walker likely was lost for the season with a knee injury that required surgery.
Losing Johnson would leave the Chargers with only two receivers--Anthony Miller and Quinn Early--who have caught a pass in an NFL game.
That should provide more of an opportunity for the young receivers in camp, and most impressive against the Rams probably was 12th-round draft choice Elliott Searcy, who caught three passes for 88 yards.
Both Vlasic and Friesz had relatively equal games statistically. But Friesz’s performance might have been the more impressive, if for no other reason than that his first week of camp had gone so badly.
“After my first practice, I was really disgusted with myself,” Freisz said. “But each day, I feel I’m getting more comfortable.”
Friesz, a sixth-round draft choice from Idaho, was eight of 13 for 114 yards and two touchdowns, of four yards to tight end Andy Parker and nine to Lee Allen, a rookie free agent who was a teammate of Friesz’s at Idaho.
“Friesz had some good and some bad,” Coach Dan Henning said. “The bad was rookie bad. But that is what we wanted to see, you turn on the lights, and see what comes out. There’s always that stage freight the first time.”
Vlasic, who had not played against another team since he underwent knee surgery after he was injured on Nov. 20, 1988, in a game against the Rams, was six of 14 for 194 yards.
The Chargers also highlighted their three Plan B acquisitions at running back, and the most impressive was the least touted.
Joe Mickles, who spent last season on Washington’s special teams, carried five times for 49 yards. That was better than the combined 27 yards on eight carries by the team’s more experienced Plan B backs--Ronnie Harmon and Thomas Sanders. Harmon also added two receptions for six yards but dropped an open pass from Friesz.
The Rams used off-season acquisitions Chuck Long and Rick Johnson at quarterback. Long, picked up in a trade with Detroit, completed seven of 12 passes for 114 yards and one touchdown. Johnson, a Canadian Football League veteran, was two of eight for 85 yards.
The most impressive Ram rookie was wide receiver Tim Stallworth, a sixth-round choice from Washington State who had three catches for 61 yards, twice diving on low passes.
Except for Long, the Rams used almost all rookies and free agents.
Bobby Beathard, Charger general manager, and player agent Steve Feldman of Newport Beach met Thursday but did not come to a contract agreement on any of Feldman’s three unsigned clients, including first-round draft choice Junior Seau.
Seau today begins the second week of his holdout.
Feldman said Beathard increased his five-year contract offer for the first time by about $100,000 a year to about $800,000 annually but that the sides remain far apart. Feldman earlier this week said he has proposed a four-year deal at $1.5 million per year.
“There is one thing Bobby knows, even after his latest offer: He is not paying me what I am asking for, and I’m not accepting what he is offering,” Feldman said. “So obviously there is an area of compromise there.
“At some point, the two parties have to sit down and lock themselves in a room and see if we can get it done. I guarantee you no one is playing games per se. But we have got to get this thing on the road.”
Beathard said he was encouraged by the fact that Feldman said his offer was negotiable.
“It was nice to hear his number was negotiable, because I got the impression before it wasn’t,” Beathard said. “It really didn’t make much sense moving at all if you’re up against something that is not negotiable.”
The two said they were closest to reaching an agreement on cornerback Gill Byrd and said a deal might be concluded in time to allow Byrd to report by the Saturday morning start of practice for all veterans.
Feldman said he doubted his third unsigned client, free safety Vencie Glenn, would report on time.
Byrd and Glenn are two of nine veterans who remain unsigned. The others are linebacker Cedric Figaro, defensive end George Hinkle, linebacker Leslie O’Neal, offensive guard David Richards, offensive tackle Broderick Thompson, cornerback Sam Seale and linebacker David Brandon.
Beathard said Brandon has agreed to terms, but there is no urgency in his signing because he cannot practice after undergoing knee surgery in May and might miss the season.
Beathard said he was optimistic that he was close to an agreement on the all unsigned veterans except for Glenn, Figaro and Seale.
Players cannot practice without a signed contract.
Charger Notes
No practice is scheduled for today at UC San Diego as the remaining 24 Charger veterans are scheduled to report by this evening. Practice for the entire team will begin Saturday with two-hour sessions at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. . . . The Chargers are one under the league-limit of 80 players under contract. Once they reach that limit, they will have to release a player for every one they sign. General Manager Bobby Beathard said cuts might be made as early as today after a film review of the scrimmage with the Rams.