PRO FOOTBALL / BOB OATES : ’51 Rams Invested Their Quarters Wisely

In the early 1950s after the Rams had drafted Norm Van Brocklin, they found themselves with two No. 1 quarterbacks on a team that Bob Waterfield led to the NFL championship in 1945.

What to do?

The coach, Joe Stydahar, had no hand in drafting either man and didn’t welcome the problem but came up with a solution: He alternated Waterfield and Van Brocklin--not by the game, which would have been novel enough, but by the quarter.

And in 1951, the Rams had another NFL championship, their last to this day.

The Rams won once with Waterfield and once with Van Brocklin, and the NFL was not to see the likes of that again until the present era, when the New York Giants won one with Phil Simms and another with Jeff Hostetler.

Before Monday night’s Giant-San Francisco 49er game, the Giant president, Wellington Mara, was talking about the Waterfield-Van Brocklin days, which, he said would be repeated sometime.

“Many things are possible in a well-run organization,” said Mara, who is in his eighth decade as a Giant executive. “That (Waterfield-Van Brocklin) controversy was the mother of all quarterback controversies, but it didn’t hurt the club.

“The Stydahar solution worked because (Ram owner) Danny Reeves had a sound ship. And I’m confident that someday, in the same circumstances, it will work again.”

Mara said he approved the decision made by his new coach, Ray Handley, to start the season with Hostetler--a decision that sent Simms to the bench--although the retired (but not retiring) Giant coach, Bill Parcells, advised starting Simms.

“Coaches, good coaches, usually have very different ways of looking at things,” Mara said. “Take the situation we had (35 years ago) when our coach was Jim Lee Howell, and our quarterbacks were Charlie Conerly and Don Heinrich.

“Jim Lee started the same quarterback in every game--then sent in the other guy to play the last three or 3 1/2 quarters of every game. We won that way, too--won the championship.”

There’s never a genuine quarterback controversy “unless the players are caught up in it,” Mara said. “And that happens rarely.

“Quarterback controversies are media events, plain and simple. They’re always as fierce as the media makes them. But whenever there are two good quarterbacks, the (controversy) doesn’t bother the players. That’s the point.

“The players know it’s hard to find even one good quarterback. Are they going to see a problem in having two? The bottom line is that two are always better than one.”

Nest-egg era: The final years of the 20th Century will be remembered as the era when big money came into sports, first for the players and then for the coaches.

You can’t give million-dollar contracts to a bunch of football players without scraping together a few dollars for the statesmen who tell them what to do.

Chuck Knox has grown wealthy in Seattle. Bill Walsh retired wealthy after 10 years with the 49ers. And now there’s Parcells, who left the Giants a rich man after only eight years.

By contrast, Knute Rockne, never thought of leaving coaching when he was at Notre Dame.

“Football was a big deal in Rockne’s day,” Mara said, referring to the 1920s. “In some ways, it was as big as it is now--but it didn’t generate the same kind of money.

“The difference is the money. A football coach can put together a nest egg in a few years now. You don’t have to sell cars in the off-season.

“But you pay a price, too. Football wasn’t a 24-hour-a-day job in Rockne’s day. Parcells felt that he had to work a seven-day week every week--working around the clock for seven months or so. Most coaches feel that way today.

“I’m happy for them that the financial rewards are there now because they work a lifetime in eight or 10 years.”

Second chance: One of the tight ends on the Giants this year is Zeke Mowatt, who was one of the New England Patriots involved in the harassment incident with Boston sportswriter Lisa Olson a year ago in Foxboro, Mass.

“Zeke was with us before he ever played for the Patriots,” Mara said. “He was here seven years, and he never showed us anything but good behavior.

“He was guilty of a serious mistake in (New England), but the way we look at it, based on our experiences with him over a long period of time, Zeke deserved a second chance.”

The new coaching staff, moreover, needed another tight end.

Said Handley: “We hope Zeke can grow from what was a regrettable incident.”

As a Giant in the early 1980s, Mowatt was one of the first to accept a club invitation to return to school--at the club’s expense--to pursue a college degree.

The Giants’ program was set up some years ago at New Jersey’s Fairleigh Dickinson University, the site of their summer camp each year.

And, said Mara, “Zeke put himself through FDU. He did it long after he had dropped out of college. And he got his degree. That’s the Zeke Mowatt we remember.”

As a Patriot, Mowatt was fined $12,000 by Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. As a Giant, he has declined to comment on the incident because he said, “It’s in the court system. To me, it’s behind me.”

Fun week: Quarterback John Elway called the plays for the Denver Broncos when they routed the Cincinnati Bengals, 45-14, Sunday.

But he wasn’t running either the no-huddle or run-and-shoot offense.

And it is those new ways of playing the game that trouble the Raiders--not the old quarterbacks.

In their last two starts, the Raiders have been victimized by no-huddle and run-and-shoot machinery, but they’ve usually held their own against Elway, and, in their home opener at the Coliseum Sunday, they should do it again.

Quarterback-called plays--which Raider owner Al Davis encouraged when he had Jim Plunkett and Kenny Stabler--are making Elway’s life more enjoyable this year.

“I had a good time,” he said Monday of his impressive performance against the Bengals, who couldn’t fathom what play he’d call next. “It’s fun when you look at the defensive players’ eyes, and they don’t know what’s going on.”

That is the Raider challenge this time.

Quote Department:

Paul Tagliabue, NFL commissioner, evaluating his problems with the players and other groups: “Compared to (Giant Coach) Ray Handley’s decision on Phil Simms versus Jeff Hostetler, I don’t see any problems that come close to being as difficult as that.”

Randall Cunningham, Philadelphia quarterback, on learning the hard way that scrambling is safer than standing in the pocket, where he was hurt Sunday: “When I come back, I’m going to be myself--not what somebody wants me to be.”

Jim Anderson, Cincinnati Bengals’ trainer, on the reason for running back James Brooks’ success as a 1,000-yard producer at his size, 182 pounds, and age, 32: “The (1991) Pro Bowl was played on a Sunday. Monday was a travel day. Tuesday he was back in the weight room.”

James Brooks on the relationship between year-round training and catching passes: “If you put a linebacker on me, I can run by him. If you put a (defensive back) on me, I can run over him.”

Joe Gibbs, the Washington Redskins’ coach who often sleeps in his office, on whether his new Daytona motor racing venture will be a distraction: “I had a talk with (Vice President) John Kent Cooke on that, and his statement was: ‘Hey, Joe, this is great. You need a distraction.’ “