ANALYSIS : Trade a Blessing in Disguise for Anderson : Pro Football: Running back hates the way he severed ties with the Chargers, but he has come into his own with Tampa Bay.

Look on the bright side: If the Chargers still had Gary Anderson, then this coaching staff wouldn’t know what to do with Rod Bernstine, Ronnie Harmon and Gary Anderson.

You see--progress.

Anderson is now Tampa Bay’s problem, where he’s presently the team’s leading rusher, second-best receiver, and with the exception of their kicker, the team’s top scorer. Some problem.

“After sitting out a whole year it’s good to come back with a bang,” Anderson said. “Everything is going right for me.”

You know things are going right for you when you get to play the Chargers these days.

“It will be nice to come back and play in the stadium in front of that staff,” Anderson said. “I guess you could say they didn’t believe in me . . . didn’t really give me a chance.

“They wanted to change their offense around to the big back. More like Washington. I don’t think I really fit in. So I guess they got what they wanted, and I got what I wanted.”

The Chargers got it, all right. They received two draft choices for the game-breaking Anderson. They’ve already cashed in a third-round pick in last year’s draft, selecting linebacker Jeff Mills.

Mills has one assisted tackle to his credit, but then the season is only seven games old.

The Chargers will also get a third-round pick in the 1991 draft. Tampa agreed, however, to give the Chargers a second rather than a third if Anderson gained more than a combined 1,000 yards in rushing and receiving this season.

Tampa, obviously, had no idea that Anderson would one day be matched against Junior Seau.

Anderson missed practice last week because of a calf injury, gained 12 yards in a brief appearance against the Dallas Cowboys, and still leads the NFL in total yards from scrimmage with 740.

“This is a guy who San Diego thought was a one-dimensional back,” said Peter Johnson, Anderson’s International Management Group agent. “They paid Ronnie Harmon and Thomas Sanders more money than they would have paid Gary, and one of those guys has been released and the other isn’t playing.”

Anderson has pronounced himself healthy for his return to San Diego Sunday, and for those who need reminding, the last time he was seen darting and weaving on this turf, he set a club record rushing for 217 yards.

“Tampa hadn’t been balanced in the past but Gary gives them a great deal of balance,” Charger Coach Den Henning said. “Gary is running the ball well, and he’s catching it, and he’s a threat every time he gets it. But that’s nothing new to people here, I don’t think.”

Do you think a Gary Anderson would make a difference in the Chargers’ go-nowhere offense? Do you think he’d take some heat off wide receiver Anthony Miller? How long do you think they partied in Seattle, Kansas City, Los Angeles and Denver when they heard Anderson had been shipped to Tampa?

In a recent Pro Football Weekly dispatch, the Bucs pointed to Anderson as the primary reason for their 4-3 start and improved play.

“Our only problem for the last three years was that we couldn’t run a lick,” Tampa Bay Coach Ray Perkins said. “Gary Anderson is a special player.”

Earlier this season against Dallas, Anderson caught a short pass, and with the shiftiness that makes him so exciting to watch, turned it into a 58-yard touchdown. It was the longest reception for a touchdown by a running back in the Bucs’ history.

“What sort of dimension doesn’t he add?” Tampa Bay quarterback Vinny Testaverde said. “He is one of those players who can do everything. He’s a big-play guy, and you never know when he is going to take one all the way from anywhere on the field.”

Tell us something we don’t know. Those who witnessed his electrifying leap into the end zone against Miami in 1986 will never forget his explosiveness.

“I hope I can give them a few more memorable moments Sunday,” Anderson said.

Anderson went on to catch 80 passes in 1986 as a wide receiver, then made the switch to running back and gained 1,119 yards behind a crumbling offensive line in 1988. He led the Chargers in all-purpose yardage in 1986, 1987 and 1988.

“I had a good time there, and the people in town were real nice to me,” Anderson said. “That’s what I still don’t understand. I never did anything to get treated the way I did. They gave me a chance to run the ball and I’d like to think I did pretty good. But when it came to negotiate, all that went out the window.”

Anderson earned $400,000 in the final year of his contract with the Chargers and was selected the team’s most valuable performer. When contract talks stalled the following summer, the team took an unusually hard line.

Steve Ortmayer, director of football operations at the time, went public and suggested that Anderson was being misguided by his wife, Ollie. He also said the club would not entertain trade offers for the running back.

“It was bad enough they sent me a lower contract offer than the first one they gave me,” Anderson said, “but when Ortmayer bad-mouthed my wife, that was the last straw.”

The Andersons are expecting their fourth child this week, and it’s safe to assume that if it’s a boy, he won’t be named Steve.

“It was one person. Steve Ortmayer,” Anderson said. “He had messed up so many trades, so that was working against me, too. They were afraid the fans would get on them if they traded me and it didn’t work out. I think Ortmayer felt he could wait me out and I’d come in for what they wanted to give me.”

Anderson, however, sat out the 1989 season. “We had saved money from our USFL days with Tampa,” he said.

After Ortmayer was fired, General Manager Bobby Beathard met with Anderson in Tampa, and then he delivered an optimistic report to San Diego fans at the prospect of signing him.

“Gary told me he had nothing against playing here,” Beathard said, “but his agent got me. After eating with Gary, I went back to the room with the agent and he told me I don’t care what he told you, he does not want to play in San Diego. I was shocked . . . the way I looked at it, maybe the kid couldn’t tell me to my face that he didn’t want to play here.

“I didn’t want to say what Johnson told me to the public; I wanted to say what Gary had said to the public. I felt that might indirectly put some pressure on Peter. And if we were going to have to trade Gary, I didn’t want to lessen his value.”

Johnson said, “That’s totally false. The reason the Chargers didn’t sign Gary was they didn’t think he was a good enough ballplayer. Gary was only a situational back--that’s what Bobby told me. I don’t think Bobby Beathard ever had any intention of signing Gary Anderson.”

Anderson said he remains perplexed by the events that unfolded after his encouraging dinner with Beathard in Tampa.

“We had a real nice visit and I left there with the attitude something was going to be worked out and I’d be in San Diego,” he said. “Then we heard that Beathard was telling everyone I had asked for over a million dollars, and he and I never talked figures. That kind of threw me off.

“Then he says we’re working on trying to trade me, and that came out of the blue. I think he had it in his mind all along to work out a trade, but whatever, it’s all worked out for the best.”

Beathard, while indicating Anderson’s role with the Chargers would have been that of a third-down back, said, “I don’t think anybody thought he couldn’t fit in here. Gary’s a good player.

“I just look at it as something that had to be done. I don’t think there was any way to resolve it unless we said, ‘OK, we’re going to give you $800,000 for sitting out last year.

“I was told we had to make up all the money he lost, and there was another team that would do it, if we didn’t,” Beathard said. “I said we can’t do that; if you do that, it sets a precedent for anybody to sit out and come back wanting money for the year they missed.”

Johnson disagreed. “I never gave him an offer,” he said. “I never even gave Bobby what it would take to get Gary moneywise.”

The Chargers dealt Anderson to Tampa Bay shortly before last year’s draft, then the Bucs handed him a four-year, $3.6 million contract, including a $400,000 signing bonus.

“I hate the way it ended in San Diego,” Anderson said. “But it was a blessing in disguise.”

You want to talk about a blessing in disguise, look on the bright side: Anderson is only 260 yards away from earning a second-round pick for his former club, and he hasn’t even played the Chargers yet.