He’s King of Grime, Punishment : Chargers: Butts has brought back down-and-dirty football with his bruising style.

Marion Butts turns his shoulder pads up the field and is running right at you.

That’s 248 determined pounds with the motor revving, and it’s your job to stop the Chargers’ starting running back.

“Me, I’d make that quick athletic move, and get out of the way,” Charger defensive end Burt Grossman said. “Then I’d act like I read the play wrong.”

Join the crowd.

“Marion’s job is to punish guys,” running back Darrin Nelson said. “If you look at most of our games, especially late in the third quarter or early in the fourth, you’ll see those safeties are not rushing up there to hit him anymore.

“They’re kind of hanging back waiting to see what’s going to happen. They’re not wanting to hit him, and to tell you the truth, I don’t blame them.”

To stop a player such as Butts, safety Martin Bayless said, you have to be willing to be carried from the field.

“Human nature will tell you, you don’t want to tackle this guy when he’s got a full head of steam,” Coach Dan Henning said. “You might not want to even admit it, but subconsciously you’d like to see him run by so you can catch him from behind.

“That’s Butts’ real message to everybody: I’m going to stop somewhere, but it isn’t going to be any wimp who stops me.”

No fancy footwork. Butts has charged forward for 827 yards this season to lead the NFL in rushing. Try and tackle him.

“I’m glad I’m on his side,” Bayless said.

Those who are on his side, however, know better than to get in his way.

“You’re blocking and you know he’s back there and you’re pumping your legs as hard as you can to get out of his way,” Chargers’ left guard Courtney Hall said. “When he runs into you, oh man, it’s terrible.

“You want to come off the field for a couple of plays. But you go back into the huddle and then you hear they’re going to run the same play again.”

The big guys get you whether they’re coming or going.

“When you see one of these big guys break free there are a myriad of things that go through your mind,” 198-pound cornerback Gill Byrd said. “Should I tackle him high? Should I tackle him low? Should I get out of his way? Where’s my help? What’s going on here?

“You’re going to get the worst of that collision; it’s like you’re both going 50 m.p.h. and it’s this diesel truck colliding with a Volkswagen . . . you know it’s going to hurt.”

In last week’s 19-7 victory over the Denver Broncos, Butts got away clean from the line of scrimmage in the fourth quarter on his way to gaining 23 yards. The only thing between him and the goal line was Denver 200-pound strong safety Dennis Smith.

“Dennis Smith is known as an intimidator and an enforcer,” linebacker Gary Plummer said. “But I think he was intimidated on that particular play.”

As Butts approached Smith in the open field, the safety appeared to be considering retirement. He wheezed left, and then right, but there was no escape.

“He looked weird,” Butts recalled. “It was like he was out of control.”

Now maybe if this were Ronnie Harmon or Nelson, Smith would have gone high and hard with the heavy hit. But when it became clear that Butts was a runaway mountain, Smith took a dive for the bruiser’s ankles.

“Form tackling went out with steroids,” Grossman said. “You see a big guy turn your way, and you dive for those ankles or knees or shoestrings. That way you never get run over. Of course, the running backs lean forward for an extra yard or two, but hey, I’m happy and healthy.”

When Smith went low on Butts, it looked as if he was being trampled by a herd of cattle.

“It looked like Dennis was coming loose at the joints,” tackle Broderick Thompson said.

Butts’ thigh hit Smith in the helmet, and then his foot struck his gut, and then his leg, and finally his whole body went rolling on top of Smith.

“I asked our defensive backs why everyone tries to tackle me low,” Butts said. “And they say it’s because they wanna keep playing. They say they don’t want their career to end, so they aren’t going to hit a big guy like me high.”

Smith went low, as low as he could go, but as Bayless said, “Dennis didn’t look like he was doing too well after that tackle.”

The big backs will do that. They will punish, they will pound, they will hurt. And an aspirin, please, it seems as if there are more of them.

“It’s come about because there are more and more guys Marion’s size that can run 4.5 40s,” linebacker Billy Ray Smith said. “Before you got a big guy like Pete Johnson and Pete Johnson’s good for maybe a 5.5 40.

“If a big guy is going to get to the hole just as fast as a 190-pounder, he’s going to get there with a little more authority and momentum. Where a smaller guy might get knocked back, this guy at least is going to go forward for two or three yards on a stopped play.”

In Kansas City the Chiefs are riding the back of 260-pound Christian Okoye. In New Orleans the Saints have hopped aboard 260-pound Craig (Ironhead) Heyward. The Pittsburgh Steelers have pushed forward with 230-pound Merril Hoge. A 232-pound Gerald Riggs is still running for the Washington Redskins.

“Back in the old days everybody had a big back,” Henning said. “You see, what Joe Montana does and what they do in San Francisco is a mirage. That’s one guy, one group, and one system that has been together, and they do it as well as anybody has ever done it in history. But you’re fooling yourself if you think you can do the same thing.

“Defenses are gearing up to stop that type of thing. In my time in the league, which stretches over 25 years, I’ve seen more different schemes, looks and thought processes going on. In order to settle all that down, there’s only one thing that does it, and that’s run the ball.

“Knock people off the ball so they can’t be jumping around and putting different people in. They have to anchor up and start playing football.”

Playing football for Henning is running the football, and running the football, and running the football. And then run it again.

Riggs ran the ball 397 times in 1985 for Henning’s Atlanta Falcons and that mark still rests in the NFL record books as the third-most rushing attempts in history. Henning was coach in Atlanta for four years, and each season he had a back run for more than 1,000 yards.

He was in Miami when Larry Csonka surpassed a 1,000 yards for the Dolphins. And he was with Washington when John Riggins averaged 152 yards in four playoff games, including a 27-17 Super Bowl XVII victory over Miami in which Riggins ran 38 times for 166 yards.

“You have to have a guy who is durable, and you have to have a guy who has some pizazz because the other team will try to intimidate the ballcarrier,” Henning said. “If that guy can’t take it, then the opposition gets an impression of your team through that guy.

“That’s where John Riggins was tremendous. John was an intimidator, not the intimidatee. John could get the team’s level of play far and above any quarterback I’ve ever been around. He could get the other players around him playing down-and-dirty football.”

Without planning it or even knowing it, Butts has accomplished the same thing. He’s made dirty uniforms fashionable. He has the offensive line blasting folks off the line of scrimmage.

“He gives that offense of ours a personality,” Henning said. “You can’t intimidate him. He doesn’t know what the word is.”

And as his teammates will tell you, the opposition doesn’t even try to talk trash with him. “They are all too dazed from trying to tackle him,” guard David Richards said.

No, the only way to knock Butts for a loop is to praise him. Remind him of the fantasy he appears to be living, and you will get 248 bashful and embarrassed pounds.

“Fame is man-made, and it’s something you fantasize about, but it’s short term,” he said. “A lot of people get carried away when they get it, but I’m the same old guy. Come on, without that offensive line I wouldn’t exist. I’m just trying to get my job done. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

From the outset, however, Butts has been extraordinary. He was a seventh-round draft choice from Florida State, where he carried the ball 64 times in two years. He was supposed to play special teams for the Chargers.

“He’s fortunate because Gary Anderson never showed up,” Henning said. “He fell into something here that was out of necessity. It’s like that for anybody, when preparation meets opportunity, only this guy’s got it in spades. Nobody prepares or gives himself more of a chance than Buttsy.

“He runs hard every damn day. He’s been here 18 months and he’s never taken a slow step on the practice field unless we’ve had to pull him back. This is a man with strong values . . . He can’t always communicate it well, but you can see there’s character and substance there.”

And you can’t help but be in awe of the physical talent.

“This guy has what a lot of big guys don’t have,” Henning said. “Some guys can bring it, but with no thrust. Power comes from mass times rate. If a guy can increase his rate he’ll tremendously improve his power and thrust.

“Buttsy sees a hole, and wheeeew , he can explode off either the right or the left leg. When he hits it, he’s going with such a load, that a lot of times even when things aren’t blocked cleanly, there’s still no stopping him.”

On Butts’ third carry in the NFL, he ran for a 50-yard touchdown against the Raiders. In last year’s game against Kansas City, he beat up the Chiefs for 176 yards in a club-record 39 carries.

This season he has averaged 4.7 yards a carry even though everybody in the stadium knows he’s getting the ball.

“I don’t think when he runs and hits people he looks at it as punishment,” Henning said. “I think he looks at what he deals out, like if I don’t do this, I won’t be respected. I think this is what he was told as a kid: work hard, do your best every time out, and that’s what people will respect.”

Straight forward--just like he runs.

“I’m just a quiet, peaceful runner,” he said, “who tries to get the job done.”