Injuries, Beathard Provide Charger a Reason to Believe

In football, where reputation feeds into ego, little pride is found being selected in the last phase of the 12-round college draft.

Just ask Major Harris, the one-time Heisman Trophy candidate. He could not hide his disgust when he was taken this year by the Raiders with their final pick. He spurned the NFL entirely and instead signed with British Columbia of the Canadian Football League.

Even for a high-profile player such as Harris, the odds of making a team as a 12th-round pick are long.

Few understand this better than wide receiver Elliott Searcy, this year’s final Charger pick. Not since safety Frank Duncan made it in 1979 has the Chargers’ last draft selection stuck with the team.

“It really depends on the person,” Searcy said. “If the person feels that because he is a 12th-round pick, his chances are slim, then more than likely, they will be. But if you go into it with the frame of mind that your chances are as good as anyone’s, even though you are a 12th-round pick, then you’ll do fine.”

But while Searcy faces a challenge to make the 47-man final roster, events of the past few days have made him a more valuable commodity.

In three days this week, the Chargers lost two experienced wide receivers.

Wayne Walker, who started the final three games last season, underwent arthroscopic surgery Thursday to repair a left knee ligament that was torn in practice Tuesday and likely is out for the season. A few hours after that operation, veteran free agent Troy Johnson broke three ribs in a scrimmage against the Rams and sustained a partially collapsed lung. He is expected to be hospitalized indefinitely, and likely will miss six to weight weeks, Coach Dan Henning said.

But bad fortune is not the true reason for Searcy’s good fortune. He made his own against the Rams.

Searcy caught the attention of Henning, who singled him out for mention after he caught three passes for 88 yards including gains of 31 and 50 yards.

“I felt real relaxed and confident,” Searcy said. “I went into the scrimmage really wanting to have tunnel vision, just focus on what I need to do.”

Searcy, 5-feet-7 and 173 pounds, was the last of 17 draft choices and the 326th player of 331 taken overall. He was selected out of Southern University as much for his return abilities as for his skill in catching passes. In three seasons, Searcy caught 75 passes for 1,142 yards and eight touchdowns. He also averaged 18.3 yards on kick-offs and 6.3 on punt returns.

Those dual abilities could help his chances of making the team, but as the first week of camp concluded, his receiving skills suddenly became even more valuable.

The Chargers started last week with 11 receivers and were so sure of their depth, they cut three of them after signing Johnson 10 days ago.

Now they are left with only two experienced receivers--Anthony Miller and Quinn Early. Henning said rookie running backs J.J. Flannigan and Jerry Mays will be tried. Of the five others still left to practice, not all are healthy.

Nate Lewis, a seventh-round draft choice, has a bruised right knee that kept him out of the Ram scrimmage. And Searcy bruised his right thigh against the Rams when he hit the ground after a catch. He wore a wrap Friday, an off-day since the remaining veterans were scheduled to report for physicals, but expects to be back on the field when practice resumes this morning. As a 12th-rounder, he realizes he cannot let an injury slow him now.

“It’s bad that the other players went down,” Searcy said. “Now the others just have to pick up the slack.”

If he had to go in the 12th-round, Searcy can at least take comfort in the fact that it was Charger General Manager Bobby Beathard who selected him. When he was in Miami and Washington, Beathard developed a reputation for finding valuable sleepers in the late rounds.

In three of his final four seasons with the Redskins, Beathard’s final pick made the team. One of them was running back Joe Mickles in 1989, who joined the Chargers this season as a Plan B free agent and also had a strong scrimmage, gaining 49 yards on five carries.

The only one of those four who lost out was punter Wayne Ross of San Diego State. But Beathard’s best final selection came in 1981, when he took tight end Clint Didier from Portland.

Beathard, too, knows the difficulties facing a 12th-round choice. His son, Jeff, a running back from Southern Oregon State, was a final-round pick of the Rams in 1988. He was cut without playing in an exhibition game.

“I know he (Beathard) worked with a couple of teams where he has brought guys in the later rounds and really developed them,” Searcy said. “I hoping that maybe he can do that for me.”

Beathard said Friday he has made final offers to three of the team’s seven unsigned veterans.

Beathard has told the agents for linebacker Cedric Figaro, offensive guard David Richards and offensive tackle Broderick Thompson that the team’s offer is final.

“They’re in a position where they have to make a decision to come in or stay out,” Beathard said. We’ve come up. They’ve come down. And we’ve gotten to the point we can’t go any higher.”

The agent for Thompson, Jeff Irwin of Scottsdale, Ariz., said the offer was unacceptable, and Thompson will not report.

“We’re leaving it,” he said.

The other unsigned veterans are cornerback Gill Byrd, free safety Vencie Glenn, linebacker Leslie O’Neal and cornerback Sam Seale. All seven were starters last season.

All failed to show Friday on what was supposed to be the day that remaining veterans reported training camp at UC San Diego. They join linebacker Junior Seau, the team’s first-round draft choice, as the team’s holdouts.

Beathard said negotiations were continuing in most cases and that he has a meeting scheduled for this morning with Steve Feldman, the agent for Byrd, Glenn and Seau. Beathard said that the team remained far apart in talks about Seale but that he had not phrased his offer as a final one as he done with the three others.

“Anytime you come to camp with players not signed, it’s a concern,” Beathard said. “But we’re not alone in this. I’m still optimistic that something will happen with a few (today) because we’re close.”

But not all was just talk Friday. The Chargers did sign veteran defensive end George Hinkle. The contract was for one year, said Hinkle’s agent, Ted Updike of Tempe, Ariz.

The Chargers also signed linebacker David Brandon, Beathard said. But Brandon is recovering from knee surgery in May and will be placed on waivers today as part of a procedure that would allow the Chargers to reclaim him Monday, re-sign him and place him on their injured reserve list for the season without having him count against the league’s current team limit of 80 signed players.

The Chargers now are at the 80-player limit and from now on will have to cut a player for every one they sign.

Charger Notes

Practice for the full team begins today with a double session at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. . . . Offensive guard Mike Simmonds, a Plan B free agent from Tampa Bay, had arthroscopic surgery Thursday to remove cartilage and smooth some roughness in his knee, Coach Dan Henning said. Henning expects Simmonds to be out two to three weeks.