Injuries Alter the Balance of NFL Power

Jim Finks, the New Orleans Saints executive, who heads the National Football League’s competition committee, is something of an authority on quarterback injuries.

As the Pittsburgh Steelers’ first T-formation quarterback in the 1950s, he kept playing in 1953 after suffering a broken jaw and getting four teeth knocked out, but was sidelined after undergoing knee surgery the next year.

“That’s all part of football,” Finks said of his injuries. “When you’ve got the ball, you’re going to attract a crowd.”

Not much has changed since Finks’ days.

A half-dozen quarterbacks -- including four with teams that have Super Bowl visions dancing in their heads -- attracted a crowd last week and have been sidelined for varying amounts of time.

The injuries -- and that Joe Montana of San Francisco still is healthy -- have increased the odds of the 49ers’ winning their third straight NFL title. This week, the oddsmakers changed them from even money to 3-5 favorites to win the Super Bowl.

You don’t see much hand-wringing by the teams that lost quarterbacks, however. Teams virtually are resigned to quarterback injuries. Finks said he doesn’t envision any rule changes to try to eliminate the injuries, because the league has tried that -- to no avail -- with such things as the in-the-grasp rule, which Finks would like to throw out because it’s too tough to call.

The important thing about quarterback injuries is how a team copes with them.

Two of the teams that lost starters, the New York Giants and the Chicago Bears, primarily are running teams and may have easier times handling them than the 49ers would if they lost Montana or the Philadelphia Eagles would if they lost Randall Cunningham.

A third team, the Buffalo Bills, proved it could win with its backup last year.

“We have to roll with the punches, that’s all,” said Bills General Manager Bill Polian, who is confident that backup Frank Reich will do well in place of ailing Jim Kelly in Sunday’s crucial game against the Miami Dolphins. Reich went 3-0 in relief of Kelly last season.

In recent years, backup quarterbacks have taken on a more important role, because so few quarterbacks can survive a 16-game season intact. Only six did the last two years, although the number is up to 12 so far this season.

“The backup quarterback is the second-most important player on your team,” said Ernie Accorsi, executive vice president of the Cleveland Browns.

The Browns will start Mike Pagel for the last two games after Bernie Kosar suffered a chip fracture of his right thumb last week.

For the Browns, it’s academic how Pagel does, because they’re out of the playoff race.

But for Reich, Jeff Hostetler of the Giants, Mike Tomczak of the Bears and Steve Pelluer of the Kansas City Chiefs, this will be a chance to take their teams into the playoffs.

Blair Kiel of the Green Bay Packers, who never has started a non-strike game, will replace Anthony Dilweg on a team that is alive in the playoff chase, but needs a lot of help to make it.

Reich is subbing for Kelly, who is out a minimum of three-four weeks with a partial ligament tear, and, if he can help Buffalo beat Miami Sunday, the Bills won’t play their first playoff game until the weekend of Jan. 12-13. The Bills went from 3-1 to 5-1 on the odds board to win the Super Bowl without Kelly.

Phil Simms was put on the Giants’ injured reserve list with a sprained arch (the same injury that has given running back Gerald Riggs of the Washington Redskins so much trouble the last two years), but Hostetler gets to warm up with two fairly easy opponents -- the Phoenix Cardinals and the New England Patriots -- the last two weeks of the regular season. The Giants’ odds went from 7-2 to 5-1 without Simms.

Tomczak replaces Harbaugh, who is out for the season with a separated shoulder, but the oddsmakers apparently don’t think there’s much difference between the two. The Bears are 15-1 with Tomczak, the same odds as with Harbaugh. Coach Mike Ditka seems intrigued with rookie Peter Tom Willis and may give him a shot.

Steve DeBerg of the Chiefs, who has a compound fracture of the small finger on his non-passing hand, has the best chance of returning by playoff time and would like to try to play Sunday, but Pelluer figures to start.

Kiel was the Packers’ third-stringer, but now is the starter because Don Majkowski and Dilweg are out.

If a backup could win the Super Bowl this season, he could become the fourth quarterback who wasn’t the starter at the beginning of the year to do it.

Earl Morrall replaced Johnny Unitas late in the second quarter of Super Bowl V and guided the Baltimore Colts to victory, and Jim Plunkett came on after Dan Pastorini of the Oakland Raiders suffered a broken leg in the fifth game of the 1980 season and led the club to the title.

The most recent example was Doug Williams, who won the Super Bowl after the 1987 season for the Washington Redskins after starting only two regular-season games. Williams came on when Jay Schroeder was benched for a second time in the regular-season finale.

With backup quarterbacks are in the spotlight, it’s fitting that this is the 25th anniversary season of one of the game’s most famous backups -- running back Tom Matte, who took the Colts into the 1965 playoffs with the plays taped on his wrist band after Unitas and Gary Cuozzo were hurt.

Matte completed only two passes in the playoff game against Vince Lombardi’s Packers, but the Colts had a 10-7 lead when Don Chandler tried a 22-yard field goal with 1 minute, 58 seconds left.

“It was no good,” says George Young, general manager of the Giants, who then lived in Baltimore. The problem is that the official, Jim Tunney, ruled it good to tie the score, and the Packers won in overtime, 13-10. The league raised the uprights the following year.

That Matte came within a blown call of beating the Lombardi Packers shows what a team can do with a fired-up defense supporting a backup quarterback.

At least, Reich, Hostetler, et al, are full-time quarterbacks.

Hostetler has started only two games in seven seasons for the Giants, but Young is high on him, and he gives the team a scrambling dimension it didn’t have with Simms.

“He’s smart and competitive, and he can widen the field with bootlegs and rollouts,” Young said. “He’s got this opportunity.”

So do several other backups as the playoff season nears. It’s up to them to make the most of it.