PRO FOOTBALL REPORT / WEEKDAY UPDATE : CHARGERS : Trade That Wasn’t Paid Off

The Chargers selected running back Marion Butts in the seventh round of the draft last season and then received a phone call from New York Giants’ Coach Bill Parcells.

“He wanted to trade for him,” Coach Dan Henning said. “We were willing to trade because (running backs coach) Bobby Jackson had a good feeling about Dave Meggett. We tried to push to take Meggett earlier (in the draft) and would have traded Bill for Meggett.

“I’m not sure that Bill was as high on Meggett. I think his personnel people were, and I’m not sure they’d trade Meggett. We certainly wouldn’t trade Butts, but either one of us would have liked to have both of them.”

The Giants had selected the 5-foot-7, 180-pound Meggett in the fifth round.

Butts stayed with the Chargers, and if he gains five yards Sunday, he will become the seventh running back in the team’s history to rush for 1,000 yards.

“It’s great to see that on a guy like that,” Henning said. “That offsets some of the negative things about this business to be able to see a guy come in here and have only hope and only desire, and tied with effort, make it happen for himself.”

Butts carried the ball 29 times his senior season at Florida State as a blocking back. He has run 217 times this season for the Chargers and has averaged 4.6 yards a carry.

“I haven’t looked at my contract since I signed it; I don’t know,” Butts said when asked if he will receive a bonus for hitting 1,000 yards. “It will be great probably, it will be something.

“I mean I’m five yards away. Five yards is a lot of yards. It might take one game, might take two, might take all four games to get five yards. That’s a very cruel world out there. Am I right?”

Is he kidding?

Butts ran 26 times for 121 yards in a 39-3 victory over the Jets earlier this season. He’s only 185 yards away from becoming the Chargers all-time single season rushing leader.

“It will be great. Overwhelming. Swell,” he said. “Right now, though, I’m just looking for a win.”

Henning was asked if there was any danger of his team being “flat” after losing an important division game with Seattle last week, and having already easily defeated the Jets.

“They won’t be flat; there’s a risk, but they won’t flat,” he said. “The Jets won’t be flat, either.

“We’re just getting back to work and we’re trying to put that game (13-10 overtime loss to Seattle) out of our mind and block it out. It was a very difficult thing to deal with after the game for the coaches and the players. We’ve taken pains to study it, get rid of it and focus on the Jets.”

Henning issued an encouraging injury update after the Chargers went through practice in full pads.

Tight end Arthur Cox, listed as questionable with a thigh bruise, practiced although he is still limping.

Henning said linebacker Gary Plummer (pinched shoulder nerve) “looked all right,” and said linebacker Cedric Figaro (hamstring) had improved.

He said linebacker Billy Ray Smith will have his sore elbow encased in padding. “You’re playing one hand behind your back if you can’t neutralize the tight end and that’s the thing that worries us the most with Billy,” Henning said.