Butts Gets Going, Brings Chargers
For the Chargers, the first 15 minutes against the Dallas Cowboy Saturday night were everything one has come to expect in the first quarter of the first exhibition game of an NFL season. Which is to say little of anything.
Missed connected passes, rushes that went nowhere behind lines that made few holes, a couple of penalties and a lot of guys smashing into each other but making little progress.
But then running back Marion Butts got rolling, carrying clutching Cowboys along for the ride and sparking the Chargers to a 28-16 victory at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.
The Butts Express got moving on the Chargers’ opening series of the second half after the Cowboys had taken a 6-0 lead. Until then, the Charger offense had managed two first downs in three possessions. But then Butts, all 6-feet-1, 248 pounds of him, took charge. Once he did, he and the Chargers were hard to stop.
Butts carried on five consecutive plays for 42 yards, the final time on a one-yard touchdown run that gave the Chargers the lead for good at 7-6.
“Butts really spurred us after they got six points,” Coach Dan Henning said. “Butts more or less took it down there by himself. That’s the way he played at the end of last season. He’s a slashing, powerful runner. The real excitment in the ballgame was in that drive.
“When Butts got going, the whole bench came alive.”
And as the night went on, they would have much to cheer about. That’s good, even if it is early and opposition was the Cowboys, the worst team in the NFL last season.
Billy Joe Tolliver, playing only in the first half, was a respectable nine of 15 for 108 yards. He didn’t have a touchdown pass, but neither did he throw an interception.
“I know what we’re trying to do with each play,” Tolliver said, “whereas last year they’d call a play, and I wasn’t sure what we were trying to accomplish.”
Five of his completions for 80 yards went to wide receiver Anthony Miller, who flashed hints of his Pro Bowl form of last season.
Mark Vlasic, in a second-half performance that must have made the Chargers feel easier about their decision earlier in the week to keep him and release more experienced David Archer, was 11 of 13 for 135 yards and led the Chargers to two fourth-quarter touchdowns. The first came with the help of a 46-yard completion to rookie wide receiver Nate Lewis, the second on a one-yard pass to running back Joe Mickles.
The running game also had its moments aside from Butts. Ronnie Harmon, Thomas Sanders and Mickles, the team’s Plan B acquisitions, all scored once.
And the defense was most of what it has become to be known for over the past two seasons.
It made the Dallas’ first two quarterbacks, Troy Aikman and Steve Walsh, look like the second-year players they are, regardless of how much money they are being paid.
The Chargers had three sacks and held the the Cowboys to 286 total yards. Only a one-yard touchdown plunge by third-string quarterback Babe Laufenburg with 59 seconds left made the final score appear at all close.
The game also proved the success of the NFL’s off-season rule changes designed to speed up the game by cutting down on clock stoppages. It lasted only 2 hours 57 minutes and kept the attention of the crowd of 42,221. Not until 10:08 remained and the Chargers were leading, 21-9, did the first wave make its way around the stadium.
“We moved the football, we got some consistency, and we responded well,” Tolliver said. “And we won that game.”
What kind of gauge this was for the Chargers was hard to tell. These are not the Cowboys of old. Dallas is a team that is trying to rebuild from a 1-15 season with a large collection of new faces.
Not to say there weren’t some recognizable features. The numbers were familiar. But instead of Herschel Walker behind No. 34, it was Tommie Agee, a Plan B free agent from Kansas City who carried once in each of his first two NFL seasons. And instead of Tony Dorsett wearing No. 33, it was Timmy Smith, a one-time Super Bowl star for Washington who was cut last year by the Chargers in training camp in favor of rookies Dana Brinson and Victor Floyd, neither of whom lasted the season.
Actually, Timmy isn’t really the Smith Dallas wants most. The Cowboys used the first-round pick it obtained in the Walker deal to take running Emmitt Smith of Florida this year in hopes of boosting what was the 12th-rated rushing offense in the NFC. But Smith is holding out, and so was the Dallas running game Saturday night.
Agee and Smith combined for 14 yards on 11 carries as the Cowboys managed only 94 yards on 25 carries.
Fittingly, their best run of the night was by Aikman. Looking every bit the wishbone quarterback he never wanted to be at Oklahoma, Aikman took a bootleg up the left side, running by cornerback Sammy Seale, who bit on the inside fake and had his back turned to Aikman as he ran by.
Seale was able to recover to shove Aikman out of bounds at the Charger 26 but not before he had gained 48 yards. Three plays later, on third-and-nine, Aikman found wide receiver Rod Harris open in front of Seale for 21 yards and a first-and- goal at the Charger four.
That set up the game’s first score--a one-yard run by fullback Daryl Johnston with 14:14 left in the first half. A bad snap resulted in a muffed extra point try by Ken Willis, subbing for an injured Luis Zendejas (groin). But Butts was about to get rolling, and the Cowboys’ 6-0 lead would be short lived.
Charger Notes
Running back Marion Butts will soon have a new renegotiated contract with the Chargers, his agent said Saturday. The agent, Mike Merkow of Poway, said the final details of the deal should be worked out before the season opener. The new contract will be either for three or four years. Butts, who led the Chargers in rushing last season as a rookie, has two years left on his original three-year contract, which was negotiated by another agent, Nick Kish of Clearwater, Fla. That contract paid Butts $105,000 last season in base salary and signing, reporting and roster bonuses. But Butts received earned no incentive bonuses despite leading the Chargers with 683 yards rushing and scoring nine touchdowns. “It was ridiculous,” Merkow said. Merkow said he first discussed with Bobby Beathard in February the possibility of renegotiating Butts’ contract and that Beathard was receptive. Merkow said the contract will be heavily laced with incentives and that if Butts has a season similar to last year’s, “he will be paid very well.” Under his current contract, Butts will earn a base salery of $85,000 this season.
Outside linebacker Billy Ray Smith left the game in the first quarter with a bruised right thigh and did not return. . . . Gerald Robinson started in place of outside linebacker Leslie O’Neal, the Chargers’ only remaining veteran holdout. Also missing was first-round draft pick Junior Seau, who today enters the 24th day of his contract holdout. Seau is a projected starter at inside linebacker. With Cedric Figaro out with a sore ankle, that spot was filled Saturday by free agent Richard Brown, formerly of the Rams and San Diego State. . . . The Cowboys will remain in San Diego for the week, conducting a joint training camp with the Chargers at UC San Diego. But while the Cowboys will be practicing through Friday, the teams will work out together only twice on Tuesday and Thursday at 3:45 p.m. The Cowboys will depart Saturday for an exhibition against the Raiders at the Coliseum, and the Chargers will play the Rams at Anaheim Stadium. . . . A tape of Saturday’s game will be televised today at 3 p.m. on Channel 10.