PRO FOOTBALL : Exhibition Games Are for the Real Fans Plotting the Future

One difference between football fans and other people is their attitude toward NFL exhibition games.

To the non-fan or the casual fan, exhibitions are just that--practice exercises with no redeeming values.

Those who take a keen interest in football see something more.

For example, in a sport whose participants have a career expectancy of only four years, the development and progress of any NFL club depends on the quality of its rookies. And exhibition time is rookie time.

In the Raider game Sunday in London, three young prospects, in particular, caught the eye--two of them Raiders: defensive end Anthony Smith of Arizona and linebacker Aaron Wallace of Texas A&M.;

The third was a New Orleans Saint, tight end Charles Arbuckle of UCLA, whose ability to find his way into the open quickly and consistently was a feature of the game.

“Arbuckle possesses exceptional receiving skills and fine speed,” said his UCLA coach, Terry Donahue. “If he can stay healthy, he’ll be a tremendous pro player.”

The question, of course, is whether Smith and Wallace can eventually improve a Raider defense that needs improving--or whether Arbuckle is the pro he seemed to be--and that’s what the rest of the exhibition schedule may determine.

It’s the kind of thing that interests fans of football.

In an exhibition game, nothing is less important than the score. The significance of each game has to do with personnel. Is Anthony Smith a player? Is Wallace? Is Arbuckle?

The six-month 1990 season opened in Canton, Ohio, Saturday with one of the most anticlimactic of all plays--a nonreturnable kickoff into the end zone.

As the Chicago Bears faced the Cleveland Browns in a small stadium, a capacity crowd was on its feet and cheering when the ball sailed over the heads of the receiving team, killing the play and the moment.

In the regular season, too, the NFL, which is purportedly in the entertainment business, kills such moments week after week. It does so deliberately by authorizing the use of a kicking tee, the tool that artificially fabricates long-distance kickoffs.

The explanation for the staying power of the kicking tee, according to a member of the rules committee, Don Shula of the Miami Dolphins, is that it makes NFL coaches more comfortable.

“(The coaches) want it,” Shula said.

They agree, most of them, that they’re happier when they can get their regular offenses and defenses on the field at the 20-yard line after an end-zone kickoff.

A shorter kickoff--the usual result when the ball is kicked from the ground instead of a tee--sets up the unknown. And although veteran football people tend to fear the unknown, it’s just what their fans want.

The long kickoff return is one of the most dramatic plays in football. Even a short return can have its moments.

When the NFL Establishment is in the wrong, as it is in this case, it should be pressured until it yields.

The trouble with the grasp-and-control rule, which was designed to protect the quarterback from injury after he has been wrapped up by a defensive player, is that no two referees seem to call it the same way.

As a judgment decision, it’s so tricky that the same referee called it two different ways in the Saint-Raider game.

On one occasion, Jerry Markbreit whistled a play dead before there was even much contact.

The next time, Markbreit, one of the NFL’s foremost referees, stood around until a passer fumbled after he was in the grasp.

The league’s first priority on such a play, beyond question, is to save the quarterback. But the second, surely, is to bring uniformity to the call.

In the NFL, with the ball in play, referees are the only officials required to watch one player and one only: the quarterback. If the referees can’t get more consistency, the rule should be strengthened until they can. In recent years, too many quarterbacks have been injured.

In a Raider discussion the other day, NBC analyst Bill Walsh made a constructive point about halfback Marcus Allen, who, according to some reports, is about to be traded.

“If the Raiders are thinking of getting to the Super Bowl this year, they need both Marcus Allen and Bo Jackson,” Walsh said.

That’s the way it seems to many Raider fans, who won’t see Jackson in a Raider uniform until the regular season is five, six or seven games old.

Moreover, NFL running backs are often injured--these two particularly. If the Raiders could count on either Allen or Jackson for all 60 minutes of 16 games, they would have a sufficient running attack.

For reasons that are basically obscure, the Raiders have undervalued Allen during most of his pro career.

He’s one of the best in the land. As Walsh, the builder of San Francisco’s Super Bowl winners, said, Allen is capable of a 1,200-yard season this year.

That would help some club make a championship bid.

No-huddle football, as brought back several years ago by Sam Wyche of the Cincinnati Bengals, is apparently spreading this year to the Saints, Chicago Bears, New York Jets and other NFL teams--although the Jets won’t confirm it.

“I hesitate to give out trade secrets,” said their new coach, Bruce Coslet, who as a Bengal assistant helped Wyche design the no-huddle system. “It would be in the paper in (other cities) tomorrow.”

The Saints, however, experimented with no-huddle plays in the wide open Sunday. In their version, they were in too big a hurry to snap the ball, failing to give their wide receivers enough rest time between plays

By contrast, Wyche has quarterback Boomer Esiason stand at the line of scrimmage as long as he would ordinarily stand in a huddle. There’s no rush.

The purpose of a no-huddle play is to keep defensive coaches from inserting specialists, and they can’t do it as long as the offense is an imminent threat to start the play.

The Jets plan to abandon the huddle at times this year in an attempt to get four receivers against the wrong defense for their kind of talent.

“A lot of people are pretty envious of our wide-receiver group,” Coslet said.

The group includes Al Toon, the tall Pro Bowl veteran, and JoJo Townsell, the Jets’ 1989 MVP from UCLA, plus two of the league’s better 1990 rookies, Rob Moore of Syracuse and Reggie Rembert of New Mexico.

Meantime, Wyche is considering the run-and-shoot this year and the no-huddle.

“The league is going to change a lot,” he said.