Kid Was Great, but Name of the Game Is Survival

In the one dressing room was the Kid. He had never started an NFL game before this day. His golden-red hair hung in ringlets down the back of his freckled neck. His blue eyes, which had never looked over a line of scrimmage in a regular pro game and tried to figure what a defense was doing, were wide with innocence. He was born when Nixon was President.

In the other locker room was the Old Pro. He was starting his 133rd NFL game--and appearing in his 184th. He had looked over lines of scrimmage for five teams in 14 years. He had seen every defensive formation the league could throw at you. He was born when Eisenhower was President.

The Kid had a great game. But the Old Pro won it.

Steve DeBerg is like a grizzled old pitcher who doesn’t have the hop on his fast one any more. His curve might hang, too--but he knows what they can’t hit.

DeBerg, in fact, never was what you would call overpowering. No one ever mixed him up with Dan Marino or Joe Montana, or Joe Namath, for that matter. He lost jobs to some of the best in the business.

When DeBerg came up, with the Cowboys, Roger Staubach was there. When he went to San Francisco, here came Joe Montana. He went to Denver, and along came John Elway. He went to Tampa, and here comes Vinny Testaverde. He went through more towns faster than a freight train. His nickname in the better locker rooms became Steve DeBackup.

Todd Marinovich had a glittering debut Sunday. He threw 40 passes, completed 23--three for touchdowns--and no interceptions.

Steve DeBerg made his debut in 1978. He threw 32 passes, completed 16, one for a touchdown, and threw three interceptions. It was inauspicious next to Marinovich’s.

But will Marinovich still be at the helm 14 years from today, steering his team in a playoff, shucking off a pass rush, reading a blitz, foiling picks, riding shotgun? And throwing no interceptions?

It’s a tough way to make a living. It’s not a position, it’s a target. Lots of guys had great first games, even great first seasons--and then the defenses began to wise up to what their tendencies were, what foot they threw off, which patterns they liked and what were their weaknesses. Many a guy started out as another Johnny U. but ended up as another John Q.--punching time clocks, changing tires, selling insurance.

Steve DeBerg is a survivor. His career is living proof that the arm doesn’t have to be bionic, the vision as peripheral as a goldfish’s, to stick around. If the hand is steady, the nerves sound and the instincts trustworthy, he lasts. Joe Kapp could hardly throw a spiral. But if a guy got open, the ball was there--even if it arrived end over end.

DeBerg’s throws don’t arrive end over end. He’s not exactly a junk pitcher, but he has the control of one. He throws strikes. The ball almost never arrives in the arms of an unintended receiver. He threw only four interceptions last season, in 444 passes. That figured to 0.90%, the second-best interception record in league history.

DeBerg has outlasted some guys whose statues are, or will be, in the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. He is 11th in yardage gained. Only one active quarterback, Dan Marino, ranks ahead of him. And he has passed such Super Bowl stars as Jim Plunkett, Joe Namath, Ken Stabler and Terry Bradshaw, to name a few. His completion statistics are even better. His 2,632 put him in the top six.

DeBerg, who likes to refer to himself as Freddy Krueger because he has been given up for dead so many times, only completed 14 of 20 passes--compared to young Marinovich’s 23 of 40--Sunday. But in the fourth quarter of the game against the Raiders, with his lead an uneasy 20-14, and third and seven at his 47-yard-line, De Berg smelled a blitz--a ploy in which defensive players leave the ramparts undefended and go storming on the attack after the quarterback.

Against DeBerg, it’s a risky, not to say suicidal, strategy. He waited until the blitzing safety, Ronnie Lott, was almost on top of him before he unloaded his throw to wide receiver J.J. Birden, who was loose in one of the unprotected territories. The pass was completed for 53 yards and a touchdown, which broke the back of the Raiders’ comeback. They could not overcome 27-14.

It was vintage DeBerg. At his age--he will be 38 in three weeks--all he wants for Christmas is an all-out blitz on third and seven. It means there’s a hole in the wall out there some place, and no one finds one any better than DeBerg. That was the old ball game. That put next Saturday’s playoff game in Kansas City.

It is considered axiomatic in the pro game today that it takes a college hero two or three years before he has any clear idea what he is doing out there. DeBerg agrees.

“Things that happen in the NFL never happen in college,” he says. “Just when you think you’ve seen it all, they throw a new lineup and new look on you.”

The thing that determines whether you hang around for 15 years, as DeBerg proposes to do, is what you do on third down, he says.

“What you do on third down is what keeps you in the league or not. All downs are important, but the third down belongs to the quarterback. It’s supposed to be a stress on the quarterback, but it can be a stress on the defense, too. They get to pressing.”

DeBerg stresses that that is what he likes about third down. Like the canny old pitcher who likes the 3-and-2 count.

In the game Sunday, in the third quarter with the game still on the line, his team was backed up to its own five-yard line by a Raider punt. On third and 11, DeBerg passed for a first down. Eight minutes and 21 seconds later, the Chiefs still had the ball and had reached the Raider eight-yard line, then kicked a field goal.

It was a lesson in how to play quarterback. The Raiders hardly had the ball. DeBerg buried it on them, like an old dog with a bone in the back yard.

Marinovich’s entry was flashy. But the Old Pro across the line of scrimmage from him was playing a pat hand perfectly.

Hardly anyone noticed. Except the scoreboard.