Walls Is Up to His Old Tricks : NFL: At 30, former Dallas Cowboy cornerback is back in the saddle with the New York Giants.

No wonder Everson Walls is feeling like a kid again. After all, age is relative . . . even in the NFL.

Last year, the 30-year-old cornerback played for the Dallas Cowboys, a team that had only one starter older than him. If he had stayed with the Cowboys this year, he would have been the third-oldest player on their roster.

But Dallas, obviously wrapped up in a serious youth movement, left Walls unprotected after the 1989 season. And New York Giants Coach Bill Parcells was more than glad to grab another proven veteran.

Parcells, you see, has made a habit of this sort of reclamation project. Running back O.J. Anderson. Safety Dave Duerson. Linebackers Lawrence McGrew and Johnie Cooks. Quarterback Matt Cavanaugh. Kicker Matt Bahr. Together, they have 76 years of NFL experience--68 of them on other teams.

In case you’re wondering about the wisdom of this over-the-hill-gang approach, check the standings. The Giants are 8-0. Dallas is 3-6. Everson Walls has four interceptions. The Cowboys have four interceptions.

Enough said?

Well, not if you’re talking to Walls. He’s got plenty more to say.

“I never had doubts about what I could do, but I really had doubts about whether I’d ever get a chance to show what I could do in another organization, under another system,” he said. “(In Dallas), there was a lot of man-to-man, playing behind the flex defensive line, which didn’t provide much pressure, especially on first and second down when the flex was always playing run.

“Then, in (Dallas Coach) Jimmy Johnson’s zone last year, we didn’t have much pressure, and you can’t play zone without a pass rush. Meanwhile, you’ve got a lot of defensive backs getting all the praise, playing behind a front seven such as this one. So now it’s real nice to be sitting up and looking at it from the other side.”

It’s not as if Walls went unnoticed during his nine-year career with the Cowboys. He went to the Pro Bowl after his rookie season of 1981, when he burst onto the scene with 11 interceptions. This, after being passed over in the draft despite leading the nation with 11 interceptions during his senior year at Grambling.

Walls, who grew up in Richardson, Tex., within two miles of the Cowboys’ training facility, decided to take the shortest route--literally--to the NFL. He ended up making three more Pro Bowl trips, in ‘82, ’83 and ‘85, and is the only player to lead the league in interceptions three times. He left Dallas with 44 interceptions.

In just eight games with the Giants, he has pushed that total to 48 and scored the first touchdown of his NFL career, intercepting a pass by Stan Humphries and returning it 28 yards to cap New York’s 21-10 victory over the Washington Redskins two weeks ago. He also leads the Giants in passes defensed with 10.

None of this has particularly surprised Parcells, who has insisted since April 29 when Walls was signed as a Plan B free agent that Walls is one of those special players who seems to attract the ball.

As if to prove his new coach right, Walls’ first interception came in the season opener when Philadelphia quarterback Randall Cunningham rifled a pass into congested coverage. Three players dove for the ball, which caromed straight up. Then, almost magically, Walls came flying over the pile to snatch it in midair.

“Everson has had to make a pretty good transition in the style of play that he uses,” Parcells said. “He was a man-to-man cover guy in Dallas his whole career, and we’re predominantly a zone team, much like the Rams. That’s been a big transition for him. But he’s come in and made a real good contribution. He’s very alert, and he’s a smart football player with great instincts.”

The Giants are happy to have Walls, and Walls is downright ecstatic to be in New York. The situation in Dallas began to deteriorate in a hurry last season as the Cowboys lost their first eight games on the way to a 1-15 finish.

“(Johnson) had appointed me captain,” Walls said, “but when things go bad, you’re going to look to the same people you were going to praise when things go good. I was a scapegoat.

“This is completely different, of course, like night and day. When you’re winning, it makes all the things that you’ve done wrong almost go unnoticed. But when you’re losing, sometimes the things you do right go unnoticed, and the players and coaches start to harp on the negative.

“I was hoping to get out of that situation, and I was hoping to get involved with a team that was doing something as far as winning was concerned and the playoffs were concerned. But never did I envision being 8-0. That’s pretty much unthinkable.”

Still, Walls thinks it goes much deeper than victories and losses. He says even the glory days in Dallas can’t match these New York minutes, every one of which he savors.

“(Former Dallas Coach Tom) Landry always broke down the films on a championship level,” Walls said. “If we didn’t play up to Super Bowl caliber every week, which you really can’t do . . . well, we would beat some teams by three touchdowns and come out (of film sessions) feeling like we lost the ballgame. We got used to a lot of criticism.”

Parcells hasn’t had many occasions to chastise the Giants’ defense, which ranks second in the league, first against the pass. But Walls could have ended up looking at horror films again this season. He almost ended up in the secondary that will be facing the Giants’ offense Sunday in Anaheim Stadium. Yes, he almost ended up with the Rams.

Walls and the Rams had discussions before the draft this spring, but he didn’t work out in Anaheim because of an ankle sprain he suffered in an offseason basketball game.

Parcells, who for nine years had seen what Walls could do on a football field, didn’t think a couple of 40-yard dashes and an agility run through some tires would prove anything. So New York signed Walls without a workout.

“I was serious about coming to the Rams, but I had to look at the money and the chance of putting a number of years into the organization,” Walls said. “The (Ram) coaches said they would give me the chance of playing a couple of years, but I felt I had more than a couple of years left in me. So I felt I was restricted before they even looked at me.

“Here, it was wide open as far as what my achievements could be. The feeling was a little more secure here than in L.A.”

For Walls, security means no longer feeling like Old Man River in the locker room. It means no longer having to force a style of leadership he found uncomfortable in Dallas. It means hanging out with peers such as Duerson, the former Bear safety who rooms with Walls on the road and whose locker is adjacent to his.

“A lot of the pressure has been taken off of me, in terms of having to provide almost sole leadership in Dallas,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of older guys who’ve been through as many big-time wars as I have. I can go out on the field and not have to say anything. Those guys do all the talking. I don’t have to be the pumped, rah-rah type of guy. That never was my style, and we’ve got guys here who thrive on that type of intensity. All I do is feed off them.

“I still try to provide knowledge to the younger guys, but now I have to absorb knowledge about the defense, too. I’ve got guys 22, 23 years old telling me what the coaches expect out of this defense and that defense.”

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? And don’t expect this old dog to curl up on the porch. He’s still chasing receivers with his teeth bared. And he figures he’ll keep on keeping on until he can’t catch them anymore.

“As long as the guys keep the big boys off me, and I can sit back there in that soft zone, I’d like to be like Ed (Too Tall) Jones if I could,” Walls said with a laugh. “I’d rather have them tow me off this field with a tow truck.

“As long as I’m making the plays, this organization might be compelled to keep me around for a while.”

Given the Giants’ record and Parcells’ penchant for playing veterans of foreign wars, who knows how long New York’s defensive front will have their backs to the Walls?