THE ANTHONY MILLER MYSTERY : Injury Shackles Charger Receiver

It has been a miserable season for Charger wide receiver Anthony Miller, marred by dropped passes and innuendo. Now, with three games to play, there comes a surprising explanation.

Anthony Miller has been trying to run pass patterns for the past five or six weeks on a torn quadriceps muscle. The painful injury has reduced his speed and particularly affected his ability to make sharp cuts while running his pass routes.

Team doctors said Miller’s torn muscle will require four to six weeks to heal.

“It seemed like a lot of people thought I was faking,” Miller said. “It would seem guys around here would know me by now. I would never fake injury or take myself out of a game if I wasn’t hurt. I want to play.”

Miller has told the Chargers he wants to remain active, but the team said it might promote wide receiver Yancey Thigpen and place Miller on injured reserve for the remainder of the season.

Miller did not catch a pass against the Raiders in Sunday’s 9-7 loss and removed himself from the game in the second half because of injury. After the game, linebacker Gary Plummer, without naming names, suggested some players had cost the team a victory because they hadn’t fought through their pain to play.

“I don’t know if he was directing that at me, but those are his comments,” Miller said. “He has a broken finger or something; we play different positions. If I broke my finger I couldn’t play.

“Since I haven’t been practicing some people think I’m milking the injury. But my legs are my biggest asset; if I can’t use them I’m nothing.”

Miller has been hurt since the close of training camp. He has practiced and played on sore hamstrings. He has been unable to practice much recently.

The team said Miller has been bothered by nagging injuries. It didn’t sound like a big deal. Most of his teammates have been bothered by nagging injuries, too, but now those teammates have learned that Miller has been seriously hurt.

“It’s been frustrating to go against certain people you know you can beat and you can’t beat them because the injury is holding you back,” Miller said. “I knew I was hurt, but there were people here who were probably hurting, too, and they thought I was getting special treatment. But they don’t know what’s going on inside of my body.”

Anthony Miller is sensitive. His sore legs have played havoc with his concentration and he has dropped the ball. He can play better. He wants to redeem himself, but his body will not allow it this season.

Miller went to the Pro Bowl the past two seasons, but he has spent this year in the Chargers’ doghouse. There were rumors that Miller had problems with the IRS. He was involved in a paternity suit. He was driving fancy cars, partying and dropping footballs on Sunday. The team’s security consultant, Dick Lewis, investigated.

“Nothing there,” Lewis said. “Everything was just fine.”

Miller smiled. He refuses to become defensive; he has done nothing wrong. He’s heard all the rumors. Some stories, he said, some folks have yet to hear.

“Whenever a player is not playing up to his capabilities,” Miller said, “then it has something to do with off-the-field behavior. You’re not performing, so somebody says, it might be drugs or something else.

“I’m not worried about that. They can follow me all they want. That’s not the problem. That’s not me. I do get kind of mad when people think that I’d rather go pick up a paycheck than perform.

“They don’t know me. I’ve been to the Pro Bowl, but I’ve never been to the playoffs. I want to see what it’s like to win. I want to compete.”

General Manager Bobby Beathard’s a clean-living guy. Fruits, berries and exercise. He heard the stories about Miller, and witnessed the drop in production on the field, and like Lewis, he investigated.

“I have to say early on I was concerned if there were other things outside of football that might have been affecting him,” Beathard said. “We talked. But from everything I know, I’m satisfied that isn’t a problem. Right now his problems are related to being injured.”

The Chargers offered to help Miller if he was having personal problems. Coach Dan Henning spoke to him. “I think Anthony may still be going through the throes of trying to figure out what it is to be a guy that makes over a half a million dollars a year,” Henning said.

“I’ve told him some day it’s going to be over,” he said. “All those things that he wants now may affect his play. Going out at night or not taking care of himself physically, well, he can do that when he’s 35. If he plays until he’s 35 he’ll have enough money so he won’t have to worry about a thing. But now’s the time to make hay.”

Miller said the Chargers have no cause to fret. “I’m pretty sure people know I’m not a bad guy,” he said. “You don’t see me going out and tearing up the town and acting crazy.

“Yeah, I do like nice things. I was born without nice things, I see something and if I think I can afford it, I get it. Sometimes you spoil yourself after working hard to get where you are at. . . . I may go out one night a week, and all of a sudden it’s like people are saying, it’s every night. When the season starts, I have my priorities straight.”

Miller, however, made himself an easy target for critics this year. He became sullen, and stopped talking to the media in late August after a San Diego Tribune reporter detailed a paternity suit filed against Miller. The suit had been settled eight months earlier.

“I don’t know what that had to do with football, but I probably handled that badly,” Miller said. “I acted immaturely about the whole situation and shouldn’t have stopped talking to everybody. You learn.”

Miller said he has learned a whole lot this season. He acknowledged that he did not prepare himself properly for this season, and he has vowed to not let it happen again.

“I thought I’d be OK; I thought I could get myself ready in a couple of months,” Miller said. “I’m glad this happened to me; it was a knock on my head and it has woken me up. I remember the stairs I ran, the weights I hit and what I did to prepare myself after the 1989 season, and I’ll be ready to work that hard again.”

Anyone who watched Miller at work in 1989 understands that this is an athlete perched on the threshold of stardom. He fearlessly raced across the middle of the field to make catch after catch in 1989. He grabbed 10 touchdown passes, returned a kickoff for a touchdown and confounded defenses.

Two years later, questions arise and stardom becomes elusive. Will the real Anthony Miller please make himself known?

“He’s not performing as well as he did in 1989,” Henning said. “He’s gone through some injuries this year that have definitely affected him. The big question is how right does this guy have to be to play? Does every little thing affect him?

“Being a former track guy as opposed to a former football player, that’s always important to those guys. They have to feel just right when they perform. That’s possibly what we’re looking at here. Future consideration will have to be given to make sure he stays fresh in training camp.”

Henning counted heavily on Miller this season. Henning’s offense is geared around pounding the ball and pounding the ball and then springing Miller deep. But Miller has had to play wide receiver for a cast of a thousand quarterbacks, and the problems have not been all of his making.

“I don’t think he’s been at top speed all year,” wide receiver coach Charlie Joiner said. “And defenses are more aware of him. He may not be having a good year, but he’s probably helping the rest of the team by just being on the field.”

The opposition has to respect Miller’s speed when he’s healthy, but when he’s not healthy, “he’s been just another guy,” said Henning.

Miller caught 75 passes for 1,252 yards in 1989 and 63 passes in 1990 for 933 yards. He isn’t even the team’s leading receiver, however, this season. Ronnie Harmon has 47 receptions, while Miller has 44 for 649 yards.

“I don’t worry about Anthony Miller,” Joiner said. “I know Anthony Miller. I know he’s going to take care of business. I don’t want anybody to paint a bad picture of this guy because he’s a good person.

“He’s learning. He’s probably thinking I know what I did wrong to get myself in this situation, and I’m sure in his mind he’s already working on next year.”

Beathard agreed. He said the Chargers’ success in the future hinges on fielding game-breaking players like Anthony Miller.

“He’ll get it together,” Beathard said. “I’m very confident he’s going to come back. I know Anthony doesn’t want to go through another season like this.”