Fat Chance : Stan Humphries Wasn’t Physically Impressive When He Joined Chargers, but He Has Made the Most of His Opportunity
Phoenix linebacker Ken Harvey arrived late, and low, rolling hard against John Friesz’s firmly planted left leg.
The first exhibition for Bobby Ross’ Chargers yielded a 35-14 defeat, and a season-ending knee injury to quarterback John Friesz.
“You hate to say it, but it all happened for the best,” said Broderick Thompson, the Chargers’ starting right tackle.
The Chargers break the huddle and Friesz is the team’s great hope for the future. Misfortune strikes, Stan Humphries gets a chance. And Friesz?
“Tell him to look up Wally Pipp, and see what impact Lou Gehrig had on his career,” said Burt Grossman, the Chargers’ starting defensive end.
Humphries has been there before, buried on the depth chart and soured by decisions beyond his control.
“It got to one point in Washington where you felt like you weren’t even a part of the team,” Humphries said. “Nobody would talk to you. . . . Nobody would even tell you, ‘This is your job. This is what we’re looking for from you.’ Nothing.”
But then Harvey hit Friesz, and Humphries became the toast of San Diego for carrying the Chargers into the playoffs for the first time since 1982.
“He’s definitely the key to what we have accomplished thus far,” Thompson said. “In Washington, he was not even holding the ball on field goal kicks, but he was the missing piece to the puzzle here. We’re basically the same team that went 4-12 a year ago, except for Stan, and look at what we have done.”
In his first 16 starting assignments for the Chargers, Humphries, 27, has gone 12-4. He has rekindled interest in the Chargers, and has reaffirmed General Manager Bobby Beathard’s reputation as a man who knows how to procure talent.
“I saw him in Washington’s training camp this past summer and I thought he was their best quarterback,” Don Coryell, the former Charger coach, said. “I was very surprised that they were planning on trading him.
“Bobby Beathard stole him, just stole him.”
Beathard, the former Washington general manager, who had selected Humphries with a
sixth-round pick during the 1988 draft, traded a third-round pick in this year’s draft to acquire Humphries.
Mark Malone, Jim McMahon, Babe Laufenberg--the Chargers had tried them all.
“This organization just hasn’t been patient enough to bring along a quarterback,” guard David Richards said.
The perennial casting call for Dan Fouts’ replacement left the Chargers behind in the scramble to make the playoffs. But in Friesz, they believed, they had their heir apparent.
His injury left the Chargers with Jeff Graham, Bob Gagliano and Pat O’Hara.
The Redskins, meanwhile, were going to have four quality quarterbacks on their roster, once Mark Rypien agreed to a contract. Coach Joe Gibbs’ dissatisfaction with Humphries’ off-season work habits made it obvious who was going to become available.
“He has that tire wrapped around his middle, so I can see where Stan had problems in Washington,” said John Dunn, the Chargers’ strength and conditioning coach. “Washington has an established team, they have solid quarterbacking, and so Humphries comes in as a talent and they want to see him make a commitment.
“They didn’t need to suck up to him, like we did when he first got here, because they didn’t need him right away. So his weight became a determining factor on whether he was a committed person. At the same time, he’s not playing and ballplayers naturally lose a little focus, and when that happens, he has the type of body that just balloons up.”
But in San Diego, he became the Chargers’ leading man, and one of the first players to report at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium each morning. The guys won’t believe it in Washington, he said, but he hasn’t missed a weight room workout this season.
“Who cares what he looks like,” cornerback Gill Byrd said. “He wins.”
Meanwhile, Rypien has had his worst season.
“Mark took them to the Super Bowl and won, so they felt like they had the guy for the job,” Humphries said. “They’ve had a lot of injuries this year, and that hurts a quarterback. Mark held out in training camp, and they’re coming off a Super Bowl win, which is tough.
“People are going to say because I had a great year, ‘Did they trade the wrong guy?’ but I think Coach Gibbs knew who he wanted and he has stuck with him.”
When Humphries joined the Chargers four months ago, he had the body of a linebacker--a linebacker who had retired 15 years ago. He was a flabby 238 pounds, and it became apparent why Gibbs had challenged his work ethic.
“When he first came in, I thought it was just another warm body to fill the position,” linebacker Gary Plummer said. “A warm, but big body.”
Said Grossman: “He didn’t look like a quarterback or look like the savior of the organization, that’s for sure. But he’s the guy. He’s the one who has turned it all around.”
Said Humphries: “People look at me and say, ‘My God! Look how big this guy is at quarterback.’ I’ve always been like that. I don’t have to wear the rib pads, because I already have them on.”
He has lost more than eight pounds since coming to San Diego, but Roger Carr, a former wide receiver for the Colts, Seahawks and Chargers who coached Humphries at Northeast Louisiana, said, “Tell him he needs to drop eight more.”
Added Carr, who is coaching at East Mississippi Community College: “I’ve always wanted to see him with less weight. He’d be so much quicker. But then, how can you fault what he has done?
“I mean he was a natural. He could throw that thing from sideline to sideline, and there aren’t many guys in the NFL right now who can do that. I always thought he had that great arm. It was just a matter of him being in the right spot.”
Humphries felt out of place after accepting a scholarship to Louisiana State, and became academically ineligible. The football team assigned an assistant coach to take Humphries to each of his classes, but he eluded the coach, ditched classes and dropped out of school.
He returned to Shreveport to work in a car lot, and that’s where he might have stayed had his parents not contacted Northeast Louisiana Coach Pat Collins.
“I was not going to let him stop (playing),” said Jean Humphries, Stan’s mother.
Humphries accepted Collins’ invitation to attend Northeast Louisiana and back up Bubby Brister.
“Bubby was just a great athlete, quick, fast, powerful,” Collins said. “He was a tremendous, fiery competitor and worked very hard in the weight room.
“Stan was on the other end of the spectrum.”
After the Steelers had selected Brister during the third round of the draft, Humphries took Northeast Louisiana to the Division I-AA championship. Right spot, right time.
“I don’t see a big difference from his college days and what has happened to him in the pros,” Collins said. “He battled in college, dropped out of LSU, floundered and then found himself at Northeast. He’s done the same thing in the pros. I think people are just beginning to see the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what he can do.”
Only Dan Marino, with 4,116; Jim Kelly, with 3,457, and Troy Aikman, with 3,445, threw for more yards than Humphries’ 3,356 this season. He threw for more yards than any San Diego quarterback since Fouts had 3,638 in 1985.
“If we don’t make the trade, maybe I’m just sitting at Pannikin’s Restaurant every morning, sipping coffee and looking at the waves,” Beathard said. “How good of a trade was it? Look at our record.”
Although the Chargers came out ahead in the deal, so did Humphries. In addition to his $400,000 base salary and $100,000 in signing and roster bonuses, Humphries will earn a great deal more in incentives.
The Chargers will pay him $10,000 for each game in which he took every snap this season, and he had 11 of those. They will pay him $15,000 for winning the AFC West Division title, and if he leads them to the AFC championship today at Joe Robbie Stadium, he will pick up another $25,000.
They gave it little thought in August when they agreed to accept Humphries’ Washington-designed incentive package, but they might also have to pay him $50,000 for winning the Super Bowl, and another $50,000 if he is selected Super Bowl MVP.
“From what I know about Stan, he could take his team to the Super Bowl this year, and win or lose there, I don’t think it will change the kid,” said tight end Don Warren, a former Washington teammate of Humphries. “This is a down-to-earth kid from Louisiana who only wanted the chance to play in the NFL.”
Now that he has been given that opportunity, he finds himself being the long-distance guest of honor on the Dan Marino Show, and interviewed by Bob Costas and Brent Musburger.
“I was on the field last week and Dave Krieg was congratulating me on the year I had,” Humphries said. “A year ago he probably had never heard of me.
“All of this is just unbelievable. It’s something you could have never thought possible a year ago.”
A year ago, the Chargers were 4-12 and making their third coaching change in six years. Now they are two victories away from playing in the Super Bowl.
“It’s funny,” Humphries said. “The other day I was talking to Eric Moten and Harry Swayne on the practice field. One of the guys said something like we’ve never practiced in the rain in San Diego. It’s just never rained like this. And I said, ‘Well, you’ve never had to practice in January before, have you?’ ”
Humphries has been there, however, so he understands. On the practice field, he is all business, as they had wanted it to be in Washington.
“He may say two things,” Swayne said. “ ‘Get in the huddle,’ and ‘Let’s get another score.’ ”
Off the field, he doesn’t say a whole lot more, but teammates said they have been influenced by Humphries’ Washington background.
“When you’re in that environment, you know what it takes to win,” Byrd said. “We ask him questions. How are we practicing in comparison to the Redskins? How’s our attitude compared to those guys? It’s important. What do the winners do?”
He has been hit hard, and has shrugged it off. He suffered a dislocated left shoulder in Seattle, but he was in uniform for practice the next Wednesday, and started last week against Kansas City.
“I think Stan has that intangible, that toughness of mind and body,” Ross said. “The good ones have that.”
In his first four appearances for the Chargers he threw one touchdown pass and eight of his throws were intercepted. Babe Laufenberg wasn’t that bad.
“Some guys might have gone into the tank,” Swayne said. “But Stan’s personality wouldn’t let it happen. He just kept winging it.”
His offensive line has remained loyal, perhaps because he takes them out to dinner each week.
“I hear he wanted to be one of the Hogs in Washington, but they wouldn’t accept him,” Swayne said. “Something about being 280 pounds. . . . Well, he was on his way.”
He not only has been accepted here, but embraced as a team leader. In Washington, he carried a clipboard, and practiced with the scout team.
But he has a Super Bowl ring, the prize for being one of 47 players to share in the Redskins’ 37-24 victory over Buffalo last year.
“I look at that ring, and sure, I won one,” Humphries said. “But I wasn’t the guy to win it. I want another one. I want to be able to say I played a part in winning it.”
At the Helm
Charger quarterbacks since Dan Fouts’ retirement in 1987
Mark Herrmann
Babe Laufenberg
Mark Malone
Mark Vlasic
Jim McMahon
Billy Joe Tolliver
David Archer
John Friesz
Bob Gagliano
Jeff Graham
Pat O’Hara
Stan Humphries