Sitting Downrange in a Shooting Gallery Again

They were implementing rules to make life safer on the field for quarterbacks, inspiring Mike Singletary, distinguished linebacker for the Chicago Bears, to remind us: “If they make it too safe, there will be no need for the backup. Backups have to make a living, too.”

Apparently, Mike’s point registers with the NFL Rules Committee, which recently votes to modify the in-the-grasp rule.

Hereafter, a quarterback will be judged in-the-grasp only when he is captured by more than one tackler. When it is mano a mano or one on one, it is every gladiator for himself.

Preserving the quarterback, long rated an endangered species, has been a continuing problem for football entrepreneurs. A shy breeder, like the giant panda, the quarterback doesn’t do well in captivity, leading curators in the NFL to worry that if something isn’t done to protect him, the game will vanish in favor of quoits.

Do you realize that during the 16-year incumbency of Jim Plunkett in pro football, he underwent 12 operations? No. 12 involved a repair of No. 5.

To owners, noted for their cerebral excellence, the quarterback creates a dilemma: If he were exterminated, payrolls would drop. But without him, the owners have no game.

It also is hard to believe that a country of about 250 million isn’t able to produce 28 first-line quarterbacks, proof of which is many among the NFL membership are proceeding with quarterbacks less than first-line.

To keep this creature functioning, the league has imposed safety rules in his behalf. For instance, he is permitted to slide without the fear of being jumped. It is no longer permissible for a rusher to strike him on the head where all those signals are stored.

And those blocking for the quarterback have been granted wider use of the hands, making it tougher for rushers to penetrate.

Next, one is allowed to bash the quarterback only if one is within a step of him after he releases the ball.

If one is two or more steps away and bashes him, one can be penalized, or even ousted. One doesn’t like to be ousted. It causes one to lose face in the community. It also impairs one’s standing with one’s banker.

Among quarterbacks, watering down of the in-the-grasp rule brings mixed reactions. Some of the big studs--Jim Kelly, John Elway, Randall Cunningham, Jay Schroeder--welcome the change, forever arguing their movements are restricted by fast whistles.

But Joe Montana? Joe would vote for the old system, not forgetting the time he has spent in casts and slings.

The day we talk to Mike Singletary about quarterbacks, he confesses he isn’t able to make a strong case for their safety. He doesn’t say, as former linebacker Jack Lambert used to say, quarterbacks should be wearing skirts.

But Mike says: “Rulemakers don’t realize what a rusher must go through merely to lay a hand on a quarterback. He is surrounded by people who weigh 270 or 280, if not 300. And they pump iron every day. It is a war to get past them.”

Thus, when a rusher captures a quarterback and the whistle blows instantly, the rusher is deprived of gratification important to his mental health.

He can’t get in a lick. His therapy ends with nothing more than a grab.

So if some quarterbacks think they are benefiting from the rule change, rushers are, too.

An outspoken proponent of protecting the quarterback, dating all the way back to the days he coached Ken Stabler, John Madden hasn’t yet been heard from on dilution of the in-the-grasp rule.

John is bound to demur, having advanced the belief that a quarterback needn’t even be tackled. John believed that two hands below the waist was ample.

His logic? He said that since quarterbacks were such a precious commodity, so vital to a team’s success, so visible to those who watch, why fracture them?

Madden would have welcomed a whistle when a tackler merely shouted at his quarterback.

So, now the league, which spent 40 years inventing ways to protect its quarterbacks, goes back to exposing them to danger, amazingly in the wake of a season in which quarterbacks went down in large numbers.

Maybe the rule change won’t make a difference.

But we still can’t forget the 12 surgeries of Jim Plunkett, who reported thankfully it might have been 13 if he hadn’t lucked out on a suspected hernia.