Chargers Can Help Lynn Settle a Score : Pro football: Defensive coordinator rekindles an old rivalry when his squad goes after Cleveland quarterback Bernie Kosar.
If you were from Struthers, just outside Youngstown, Ohio, you didn’t take to the folks from neighboring Boardman.
“We’re talking the Hatfields and the McCoys here,” said Jim Fox, a Boardman High School teacher. “The kids from Struthers always had something to prove to the rich kids from Boardman.”
“Boardman had a better band, better shopping malls, better everything than Struthers,” said Chuck Perazich, sports editor of the Youngstown Vindicator. “Except for sports--when it came to sports, you never knew who was going to win.
“In sports it was the cake-eaters from Boardman, against the blue-collar tough guys from Struthers. Bitter rivals,” Perazich said. “That’s why I imagine (Chargers’ defensive coordinator) Ronnie Lynn has got to have a funny feeling about this game. I got to believe he’s going to try a little harder. After all, he’s from Struthers.”
And Bernie Kosar is from Boardman.
Kosar also is the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns (1-1), and today in front of a sellout crowd of 80,000 he will match brawn and wits with Lynn’s not-so-neighborly Charger defense.
“I’ve known the guy for a long time,” Lynn said. “His high school adviser (Fox) was my college roommate. I even tried to recruit Bernie to play at Cal.”
Kosar went on to prosper for the University of Miami, but today Lynn will be coming after him again. And he won’t be alone.
“Bernie knows he’s going to get the good pass rush, maybe the great pass rush,” Cleveland coach Bud Carson said. “Maybe the best in the AFC.”
This cannot be good news for Kosar. In two games, he has been sacked 10 times; on 10 other occasions, he has released the ball and then has been decked. Four of his passes have been deflected by pass rushers.
He wears an elastic wrap around a painted black plastic cup used to protect the elbow on his throwing arm, Maybe he should be padded from head to foot.
“He’s definitely a tough guy,” linebacker Gary Plummer said. “As much as he’s been knocked around in the last two weeks to still be standing--you got to admire the guy.”
The Chargers, however, do not come to Cleveland Stadium to praise Kosar. They come “to bury him,” as defensive tackle Lee Williams pointed out.
“He’s the target,” Williams said. “We know where he’s going to be, and we’re coming after him. Full throttle.”
Protected by an offensive line that doesn’t make the Chargers’ offensive line look so bad anymore, Kosar has struggled to be effective, and as a result, Cleveland’s offense ranks 26th in the NFL. The Browns feature four new starters up front, and to hear the folks in Cleveland, they’d be just as happy to go to war with the four old starters.
It took the Browns seven quarters of play to record their first offensive touchdown this season. They now have two. Their longest run from scrimmage has been 16 yards by Kevin Mack, who is now sidelined with a broken finger; their longest pass play is 27 yards, to Reggie Langhorne.
“They’ve had their problems, and they may do some things to keep extra protectors in there for Bernie,” Lynn said. “But we’re going to rush him.
“Bernie’s a courageous guy. But he may throw some away, and if you get hit a number of times, I don’t care how tough you are, you start to hurt and flinch. I can see some of that happening if we do what we’re capable of doing.”
Now if the Browns are capable of doing what they do best, then nobody scores, and these two teams go into overtime for the third time in their last five meetings.
Like the Chargers, the Browns try to construct a victory via defense. Their head coach is a former defensive coordinator, who was the architect of Pittsburgh’s “Steel Curtain.” Their big-play linebacker, Clay Matthews, has been to five Pro Bowls. Their top pass rusher, Michael Dean Perry, leads the AFC in sacks, with four.
In two games, they have yet to surrender a second-half touchdown, and as the Chargers are often reminded, they have yet to score in either the third or fourth quarters.
“I know. I know,” quarterback Billy Joe Tolliver said. “I’m sure they’ve got to feel pretty good about themselves.
“But we’re looking to change that. Not necessarily to score in the fourth quarter, but to score if we need to score. That’s our goal.”
Bring on Fuad Reveiz.
“Where’s the blindfold?” said the Charger kicker, whose job is on the line. “Coach (Dan) Henning hasn’t made it easy for me putting me on the spot like this, but it’s something that is part of the business.”
Reveiz, one-for-three in field-goal attempts, has been informed that future employment with the Chargers rests solely on how he does today.
“You can’t be panicking after two games,” Reveiz said. “You’ve got a lot of the season to go, and you can’t be looking after two games and think it’s the end of the world.”
Maybe not, but an 0-3 start would be the first for the Chargers since going 0-11 in 1975. It would also put an end to all those high-flying expectations that greeted a fifth-place schedule and Bobby Beathard’s arrival.
The last time, however, the Chargers sought victory in the Browns’ ramshackle backyard, they were waylaid, 47-17.
“We got no allies there,” Lynn said. “We’re gonna be warming up in front of the ‘Dawg Pound’ (the dog bone-tossing section of Browns fans), and they’ll be throwing things at us and calling us everything but free men.
“It’s an avid fan, a rabid fan. This is important to the people in Cleveland. These are the guys who come out of the mills wearing hard hats who just don’t take them off Friday till Sunday. They live for their football.
“I mean I got a ticket for my college roommate,” Lynn said, “and he’s rooting for Bernie.”