THE NFL / BILL PLASCHKE : The Biggest Little Hero of the Week

The most exciting running back in the NFL last week has an apartment, but no furniture.

Until last week he walked to practice because he didn’t own a car.

He prepared for his first game by eating fast-food fish sandwiches.

Only recently did his coach even know his name.

“That’s when you know you have a long way to go, when the head coach calls you, ‘Hey kid,’ or ‘Hey, No. 45,’ ” said Vaughn Hebron of the Philadelphia Eagles. “There was times I thought, ‘I’m just going to be another victim.’ ”

Instead, the 5-foot-8 undrafted rookie from Virginia Tech has become a hero.

Eagle Coach Rich Kotite knows his name today. So does much of the rest of Philadelphia, since Hebron rushed for a team-leading 66 yards in 10 carries and scored the game-clinching touchdown during a 23-17 victory over the Phoenix Cardinals last Sunday.

After he had scored on a five-yard run, completing a drive highlighted by his spinning, 33-yard run, he refused to spike the ball because he didn’t want to lose it.

Footballs, you see, cost money.

“I’ll never spike the ball,” he said.

His Eagle teammates, who retrieved the ball as a souvenir, felt like spiking it for him.

To this sour, bickering team, he has brought fun.

“In my eight years (in the NFL), I can’t remember a whole team getting so excited about a rookie like this,” said return specialist Vai Sikahema.

The excitement is in marked contrast to the embarrassment felt by Hebron on the second day of the draft last April, when his family threw a party because everyone was sure he would be picked during the last four rounds.

He wasn’t.

“It was a rough day, a long day,” said Hebron, who scared off scouts when he suffered an ankle injury during his senior season. “There was so much pressure on my family to console me. It was pretty depressing.”

Nobody even called him with a free-agent invitation the next day. So his agent called the Eagles.

Hebron has since impressed coaches and teammates by running as hard on Wednesday as he does on Sunday.

“I decided to go full-speed, all the time, get myself out there in front of other people, make it so that they would be calling me by my name,” Hebron said.

And until final cut-down day last week, he took no chances.

He would not sign autographs because, as he explained to children, he was not a member of the team. He was afraid to even buy an Eagles’ cap.

Now he already has more off-field requests than most Eagle veterans.

“For some reason, people have always flocked to me,” Hebron said. “I guess I’m a novelty, huh? I guess I come off real.”

AT LEAST THEY ARE STILL GOOD SPORTS

A new video by NFL Films called “100 Greatest Touchdowns” is worth viewing if only to hear Phil Villapiano, former Raider linebacker, rip Franco Harris for making the “Immaculate Reception.”

Harris’ 60-yard touchdown catch, on a pass that bounced backward off teammate John Fuqua, gave the Pittsburgh Steelers a last-second 13-7 playoff victory over the Raiders in 1972.

It is considered by most to be the greatest touchdown in NFL history, although Villapiano has a different view when describing the play:

“Franco’s doing nothing, he missed his block . . . he comes jogging down the field half-speed . . . I saw (quarterback Terry) Bradshaw throw the ball, I shoot over to help make the tackle . . . meanwhile, Franco, who had just drifted over there, it goes right to him.

“Had I been as lazy as Franco, that ball would have come to me at waist high.”

Harris, reached at his Pittsburgh bakery business, laughed loud and long.

“The Raiders can never let some things die, can they?” he said. “Phil was upset because he was the guy who was supposed to cover me. If I was so bad on that play, then that shows how bad the guy was who was supposed to cover me.

“That play will nag the Raiders forever.”

THAT WAS YOUR MAN! NO, THAT WAS YOUR MAN!

Nobody was whipped more in Week 1 than the Atlanta Falcons, who were fooled by the oddest defensive scheme seen in years.

Hank Bullough, in his fifth decade in football, coordinated a defense for the Detroit Lions that sometimes featured six rushing linebackers and five defensive backs.

Those linebackers wouldn’t even bother dropping into a stance. The Falcons’ run-and-shoot offense became more like drop-and-cover-up.

Chris Miller, Falcon quarterback, was sacked six times, hurried 16 times and knocked down seven times during a 30-13 defeat.

“The whole . . . game is a blur,” Miller said afterward. “They schemed the . . . out of us.”

From his office outside Detroit, Bullough chuckled.

“We knew they had a couple of young linemen, we just wanted to make them work a little bit,” he said. “We just confused them for a little while.”

Bullough, who coached in Super Bowls after the 1970 and 1981 seasons, was hired last winter to improve a Lion defense that had lost three games in the last two minutes last season.

His edict that the team practice with a sense of urgency--”Nobody is falling asleep in my meetings,” he said--has helped improve linemen such as former USC star Dan Owens, who had two sacks Sunday.

The addition of standout linebacker Pat Swilling, formerly of the New Orleans Saints, has given him leadership on the field.

“We aren’t going to win any foot races here,” Bullough said. “We are basically blue collar. We’re a long ways from a great team. But we’re going to work hard. I promise you that.”

FINALLY, SOME SOUND ADVICE

You are burning up Sunday night as you watch the Raiders being penalized for offsides on three consecutive plays inside the 20-yard line at the Kingdome in Seattle.

You are thinking to yourself, how much longer will the league allow offenses to be messed up by noisy crowds?

Thanks to Randy May of Newport Beach, you can stop wondering.

May, a former high school football star and professional touring drummer, has sold the league on “The Audiblizer,” the first on-field microphone for quarterbacks that actually works.

It worked so well during three exhibition games, in fact, that the NFL is going to use it in the Pro Bowl next January with the probability that it will be fully implemented during the 1994 season.

The quarterback has a microphone half the size of an average thumb embedded into his helmet, and a tiny power pack in his shoulder pads. At any point within the 30-yard line, on either end of the field, he can push a button on that microphone to activate the system.

For the next 25 seconds, everything he says is blared over sideline speakers, allowing his team to hear his signals even in the noisiest stadiums.

QUICK KICKS

Morten Andersen credits his work with a sports psychologist in helping him equal Kevin Butler’s league-record 24 consecutive field goals. The New Orleans Saints’ kicker can break the record by making his first field goal attempt today against the Atlanta Falcons. “I do more mental than physical work during the week,” he said. “I really don’t get nervous anymore. Nervousness comes from fear and anxiety. I don’t have that anymore.”

How big is Alphonso Taylor, the 6-foot-1, 347-pound defensive lineman claimed by the Denver Broncos from the Phoenix Cardinals? When the Broncos signed him, they also had to sign a seamstress to enlarge the team’s largest jersey from Size 50 to Size 56. Taylor teamed with 360-pound Keith Rucker to form the “Pork and Loin” duo at Phoenix. “Those guys are not just big,” said a Charger lineman after an exhibition game. “They’re fat.”

Richie Petitbon knew it would be difficult replacing legend Joe Gibbs as the Washington Redskins’ coach, but who could imagine that the Redskins’ pregame press release Monday would give directions to a postgame press conference with “Coach Joe Gibbs.”

Dwayne White, guard for the New York Jets, helped protect Boomer Esiason late in Sunday’s game against the Denver Broncos by throwing up on defensive linemen. “What a great way to block,” Esiason said. . . . We Can’t End A Column Without Mentioning Our Buddy: Ernest Givins was so upset at Buddy Ryan’s constant sniping at the Houston Oilers’ offense--Ryan calls it the “chuck and duck”--that he finally snapped. “I think (Ryan) ought to keep his comments to himself,” said Givins, a veteran wide receiver. “I’m tired of hearing the same old bull.” Asked about Givins’ comments, Ryan said: “I don’t even know who he is.”

THE BOTTOM LINE

* GAME OF THE WEEK: Buffalo Bills at Dallas Cowboys. For only the fourth time in 27 years, Super Bowl opponents play each other the next season. But it is the Cowboys who have all the motivation. Their 19-point loss to the Washington Redskins was the worst season-opener by a Super Bowl champion in history.

* A HOLY WAR: Philadelphia Eagles at Green Bay Packers. Reggie White, the $17-million free agent defensive end, will get his first shot at his former teammates. But this ordained minister really wants a shot at Eagle owner Norman Braman, who told a Philadelphia magazine that he couldn’t believe how local media swallowed “that crap about God” from White.

“Braman is the one who should be worried.” White said. “He is the one who will have to answer to God some day for calling his stuff ‘crap.’ ”

* MARINER FANS IN SEAHAWK CLOTHING: Raiders at Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks were in danger of having a local game blacked out for the first time since 1978 until 1,200 tickets were sold Thursday. After last year’s 2-14 debacle, 7,000 fans canceled their season tickets. And the Raiders still won’t be able to hear.

* “HEY MAN, I NEVER LIKED THE LADY EITHER, NOW WILL YOU PUT ME DOWN?” Pittsburgh Steelers at the Rams. In this revenge-tinged weekend, nobody will be trying harder to settle a score than Kevin Greene, the Steelers’ pass-rushing linebacker who fled the Rams last spring as if they were a burning building. He will be pretending that every Ram offensive lineman is Georgia Frontiere, the Ram owner he despises. It is hoped that quarterback Jim Everett can move better than Frontiere.

* THAT GUY’S A REAL HORSE: San Diego Chargers at Denver Broncos. The highlight of this battle between probable West Division contenders is the debut of the Broncos’ new cheerleaders and their new mascot, an Arabian stallion. No, his name is not Glyn Milburn, but good guess.

* MONDAY, MONDAY: San Francisco 49ers at Cleveland Browns. Who says the 49ers were just the team of the ‘80s? Nobody has a better regular-season record--30-10--in the 1990s either.