Looking Ahead to NFL Season: There Will Be No Looking Back

Joe Montana’s elbow is sore. An NFC team is expected to win the Super Bowl. Herschel Walker is the missing piece of the puzzle for yet another team. And the NFL is back in court.

So other than eight coaches, what’s new this year?

For the first time in six seasons, the play will stand as called.

That is, regardless of what television replays show--instant replay is dead in the NFL, at least for 1992. It was killed by the owners last March after they tired of endless controversy about games delayed and hesitation in officials’ calls.

Not to mention second-guessing from coaches, players, television analysts and “Bruno from Brooklyn,” “Billy Bob from Beaumont” and “Brian from Boulder” on radio call-in shows.

So life without replay has already been tested in preseason. “That wasn’t an interception,” John Madden yelled after an interception in a nationally televised exhibition game. Upon further review, Madden found the replay to show that the ball indeed had hit the turf before it was intercepted.

But it didn’t stand with the officials and it won’t stand when the season starts Sept. 6 without replay. Otherwise things remain the same as they’ve been for . . . oh, a decade.

For one thing, there’s a good chance it will begin once again without a labor agreement -- with or without a verdict from eight women in Minneapolis who have been hearing an antitrust suit brought by eight players seeking free agency. Like so many of the NFL’s legal problems, this one will eventually be settled, but when is anyone’s guess--any verdict will be appealed.

More of the same . . .

Ask someone to pick the winner of next January’s Super Bowl in Pasadena.

He or she might name defending champion Washington, Dallas, San Francisco, Philadelphia, perhaps Detroit, New Orleans, the New York Giants or Chicago, all teams from the NFC, which has produced the last eight champions.

Oh, a few might say Buffalo, loser in the last two Super Bowls, but most will pick the NFC team and say “They’ll beat the Bills,” a comment not taken well in upstate New York.

“I don’t think we can be considered a failure when we’ve won two straight conference titles,” says coach Marv Levy, whose talented but somewhat fractious Bills are favored by default to win the AFC again.

“People always look at the Super Bowl and say you’re a loser if you lose there. But you have to win a lot of games just to get there twice.”

Montana, perhaps the best quarterback ever, has been there four times with the 49ers, all as a winner. He was MVP in three and could have been MVP in the fourth, when he engineered a late 92-yard drive in 1988 to beat Cincinnati 20-16, one of just two close games in the eight-year NFC run.

But he missed last season after elbow surgery and the 49ers missed the playoffs for the first time since 1982.

Then he had to stop throwing when his arm hurt during a training camp session July 24. He’s expected back for the regular season, but at age 36, who knows how long he’ll hold up.

If Montana does come back, the 49ers will be back in the Super Bowl picture--Steve Young and Steve Bono replaced him capably last year when the 49ers went 10-6, but neither has been tested over a full season.

Walker, for whom Minnesota unloaded a franchise to Dallas, is now in Philadelphia trying to be the heavy-duty runner the Eagles need. Along with the the return of quarterback Randall Cunningham from a knee injury, he makes the Eagles another possibility to go all the way.

But Philadelphia was hurt by one of several off-season tragedies that struck the NFL--the death in an auto accident of All-Pro defensive tackle Jerome Brown, lynchpin of the league’s best defense. “We hope it can inspire us,” says All-Pro end Reggie White. “But we’ll miss him there in the middle.”

A lesser-known player, defensive end Shane Curry of Indianapolis, was shot to death during the off-season.

But the worst hit was Detroit, which soared behind Barry Sanders to 12-4 and won the NFC Central last year after a decade of dull, losing teams.

Last Nov. 17, right guard Mike Utley was paralyzed during a game against the Los Angeles Rams. The Lions used the “thumbs up” sign he gave as he was wheeled from the field as inspiration to take them to the NFC title game with Washington.

In May, secondary coach Len Fontes died of a heart attack, a death that still haunts head coach Wayne Fontes, who raced to his brother’s home in a futile attempt to revive him. Six weeks later, left guard Eric Andolsek was killed when struck by a runaway tractor-trailer while cutting weeds in his front yard.

That has not only left questions about the Lions’ emotional state but gaps in the offensive line, which opens holes for Sanders and protects injury-prone quarterback Rodney Peete. Thus questions about Detroit’s chances of approaching last year’s success.

“I don’t think that way,” Sanders says. “Losing them as players isn’t the biggest loss. Eric had a wife, Lenny had a wife and kids. We can’t feel it at all the ways their families are feeling it.”

The tragedies make prognostication difficult.

With Brown, the Eagles would have been favored in the NFC East and the conference overall. Without him, they remain co-favorites with Washington and Dallas in the East, with the Giants, NFL champions two years ago but 8-8 last year, a dark horse.

Chicago probably will re-pass Detroit in the Central with San Francisco, New Orleans and Atlanta all factors in the West--the 49ers should win if Montana can play near his old level.

Who in the AFC will challenge Buffalo?

Miami and the New York Jets are improved in the East and could make a run at the Bills, although the Jets figure to be inconsistent with second-year-man Browning Nagle at quarterback.

Houston should have the Central to itself while Denver, Kansas City and the Raiders, bolstered by Eric Dickerson’s return to the west coast, fight it out in the West. The Chiefs hope Plan B acquisition Dave Krieg can answer the perennial question at quarterback.

The new coaches don’t figure to do much this year--all, naturally, go to rebuilding teams. Four are recycled, four are first-timers.

Chuck Knox went from Seattle to the Rams. Tom Flores, the one-time Raiders coach, moved from general manager to replace Knox in Seattle, and Sam Wyche quit or was fired (depending on the version) in Cincinnati and signed on to try to arouse Tampa Bay from a decade-long slumber.

Ted Marchibroda, meanwhile, goes back to the Colts, whom he coached in Baltimore from 1976 to 1978 after a successful stint as Buffalo’s offensive coordinator.

As for the new guys . . .

Chuck Noll, who led Pittsburgh to four Super Bowls in the ‘70s, stepped down after a decade of medicority and will be replaced by Bill Cowher, the former defensive coordinator in Kansas City.

Mike Holmgren, offensive coordinator in San Francisco, replaces Lindy Infante in Green Bay; Dennis Green moves from Stanford to Minnesota, where Jerry Burns retired, and David Shula, son of Miami coach Don Shula, replaces Wyche in Cincinnati.

Shula, at 33, is the league’s youngest coach. Green is the second black head coach of the modern era, joining the Raiders’ Art Shell.

None have much chance of getting to the Super Bowl, which is getting to be an afterthought anyway.

Who, for example, wants the AFC representative to be Denver, which has lost three times since 1986 or Buffalo, which has lost twice in a row.

So make it Kansas City.

Which will lose, of course, to San Francisco? After all . . .

What is new this year?