PRO FOOTBALL / BILL PLASCHKE : One Play Was Enough for Rosenbach to Ride Off Into the Sunset

Those who really think that promising quarterback Timm Rosenbach quit the Phoenix Cardinals to become a rodeo cowboy are denying the reality of life on the dark side of the NFL.

Rosenbach, according to close friends and his mother, could not handle the pressures from those who questioned everything from his durability to his sanity. And so he simply walked away from a $1.1-million salary.

“When the NFL turns on you, it is not something I would wish on my worst enemy,” Cardinal kicker Greg Davis said. “When things aren’t going your way, it’s the worst thing you can imagine. You get it from coaches, from fans, from everybody.

“We’re paid to handle it. But for some people, no amount of money is worth it. Timm was one of those people.”

The final straw, according to his mother Rosie, was the Cardinals’ decision to put Rosenbach in last season’s finale against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for only the final play.

The move gave Cardinal fans one last chance to boo him after an injury-plagued fall during which he had lost his starting job. Two seasons earlier, he had been one of the league’s top passers.

She said the incident humiliated her son, who has not spoken to Cardinal teammates, officials or reporters since.

“That was what finally convinced Timm to leave,” Rosie Rosenbach said from her home in Gig Harbor, Wash. “It was a cheap shot. It was thoroughly disgusting.

“Timm’s father had coached, and he would have never done that to somebody. There has to be respect and honesty on a team, and it wasn’t there.”

So you mean that after all of the recent publicity, Rosenbach did not leave the team to rope calves?

“Sure, he has his ranch, and he enjoys that stuff,” Rosie said, laughing. “But he is not going to be a rodeo person. No.

“He left because the excitement for him was no longer there. He was tired of the lifestyle, he did not like the limelight.”

In fact, Rosenbach, who threw for 3,098 yards in 1990, will start attending classes again at Washington State in the next couple of weeks. He will stay there at least a year while finishing his agricultural business degree.

Don’t expect Cardinal Coach Joe Bugel to attend the graduation ceremony. He is still angry that Rosenbach never confronted him with his retirement plans.

“I would like for him to at least tell me to my face what his problem is,” Bugel said. “We went a long way with him. Just show some professionalism and come talk to us. This guy is a real mystery.”

Davis said Rosenbach was certainly no mystery when he abruptly turned to Davis on the sidelines in Washington late last year and said: “I’m sick of this. I can’t take it anymore.”

Said teammate Ricky Proehl: “About half the guys on the team can’t believe he did it. But the other half, like me, really admire his courage.”

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And Eric Noland thought he had it tough with the Raiders. Lamar Lathon, linebacker for the Houston Oilers, was watching television at home this summer when he watched a sports anchorman question his dedication to the team.

Two months later during training camp, Lathon attacked the sportscaster, punching and kicking him and shouting, “That’s for the damn interview!”

How come there were no fines or suspensions? Because the sportscaster was Spencer Tillman, who moonlights as an Oiler running back. Tillman would not discuss the incident.

Side note: When Bugel, the Phoenix coach, spotted a visiting reporter from Los Angeles sitting in one of his news conferences this week, he shouted: “What happened, Al Davis throw you out too?”

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Joe Montana, when told of Steve Young’s broken thumb, oozed sympathy: “I don’t care about it, I’ve got my own problems to worry about.”

Young was injured at a time when there were three veteran San Francisco offensive lineman nursing wounds on the bench. The team is secretly thrilled that he won’t return to action until that line is pieced back together, by the second game of the season at the latest.

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Emmitt Smith’s agents are privately telling people that he could miss at least the first three games as he holds out for a $4-million-a-year Dallas deal that would surpass the salary being paid Buffalo’s Thurman Thomas and make him the league’s highest-paid running back.

The Cowboys, who haven’t talked to Richard Howell or Pat Dye Jr. in weeks, don’t want to go above $2 million for a player who will cost them much more as an unrestricted free agent next season.

The guess here is that Smith will miss the first regular-season game in Washington on Sept. 6 to make his point on Monday night, but he wouldn’t miss the Super Bowl rematch against the Bills the following week for the world.

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There is a mechanism in the collective bargaining agreement that can abolish the rookie salary cap next year when the full salary cap takes place. After Commissioner Paul Tagliabue was forced to embarrass one of his teams and disapprove Rick Mirer’s Seattle Seahawks contract because it circumvented rookie cap rules, look for the mechanism to be used.

And anybody who doesn’t believe that teams are already thinking about next year’s salary cap should talk to David Fulcher, a three-time Pro Bowl safety with the Cincinnati Bengals who was released this week with his $950,000 non-guaranteed salary. He will be replaced by rookie Lance Gunn of Texas, a seventh-round pick who makes much less.

Pro Football Notes

The Indianapolis Colts are so upset about quarterback Jeff George’s holdout that they let quarterback Jack Trudeau lead them on an 82-yard touchdown drive last week against the Seahawks in Seattle. . . . It’s one thing to get caught after bed check in a strip joint while engaged in a fight with a guy at the bar. Steve Broussard of the Atlanta Falcons was suspended for three days after getting into a fight with a stripper. . . . The NFL quietly has asked its teams to refrain from retiring any more numbers because, well, it is running out of numbers. If many more are retired, the league’s strict numeral system--kickers and quarterbacks can wear only numbers 1 through 19, and so on--would be in danger. “We are encouraging teams to honor their players in other ways,” league spokesman Greg Aiello said. . . . Maybe it was only the Kansas City Chief uniform, but in the first quarter of his first exhibition game Thursday night, Joe Montana looked a lot like Steve DeBerg. And forget the uniform, it was strange simply seeing Marcus Allen run the ball again.