PRO FOOTBALL / BILL PLASCHKE : As Season Unfolds, True Colors Becoming Evident

The best part of the baseball season is just starting, and already one-third of the NFL season is over. Wasn’t it only yesterday that we picked the San Diego Chargers to go to the Super Bowl? Or was that the Phoenix Cardinals?

An update:

--The league’s best team is Dallas. The Cowboys will prove it again Sunday when they whip the defenseless San Francisco 49ers in their showdown at Texas Stadium.

Since running back Emmitt Smith rejoined the team, the Cowboys are 3-0, have outscored opponents, 80-27, and have committed one turnover.

“I hate to say that 0-2 start was the best thing for us, but it was the best thing for us,” receiver Michael Irvin said this week. “If we start 2-0 out of the box, then we are still waiting for Emmitt to come in.”

Why is this, Michael?

“You know (owner) Jerry Jones,” he said. “When George Washington leaves his hands, George is coughing, he’s choking.”

--The worst team is Cincinnati. The only bright spot for the Bengals was that on Oct. 3, for the first regular-season Sunday since he became a starter last year, David Klingler was not sacked. Yeah, OK, so the Bengals were off that day.

--The best player is Cowboy quarterback Troy Aikman. In his last three games, he has completed more than 75% of his passes, with no interceptions. He has accomplished this with a bad back, sore ribs and a separated left shoulder.

--The most disappointing player has been quarterback Warren Moon of the Houston Oilers, who will be replaced as the starter for the first time Sunday.

His nine interceptions in the last three games are more than 25 other regular quarterbacks have thrown in five games.

--The best coach has been Rich Kotite of the Philadelphia Eagles. His team lost 11 players to free agency, lost quarterback Randall Cunningham and wide receiver Fred Barnett because of injuries, and still came back from a 21-0 deficit and beat the New York Jets two weeks ago.

--The worst coach has been nice guy Joe Bugel of the revamped Phoenix Cardinals. With a 1-4 record this year, Bugel is 14-39 since joining the Cardinals in 1990. Of the 114 coaches in the history of the NFL who lasted at least 50 games with the same team, Bugel has a record that ranks 113th.

--The best rookie is quarterback Rick Mirer of the Seattle Seahawks. Mirer is one of only two rookie quarterbacks to have won three of a team’s first five games. Joe Ferguson of the Buffalo Bills was the other.

--The most disappointing rookie is running back Garrison Hearst of the Cardinals. He sat out training camp in a contract dispute and since reporting has run around the holes that the offensive line has worked so hard to create.

HE HAD HIS CLOCK CLEANED

The worst thing that happened to Jim Cheffers last weekend was not hearing that the New York Jets thought he was cheating.

The worst thing was not a phone call from the NFL that left him wondering if he still has his job.

The worst thing was that Cheffers, the Coliseum game-clock operator involved in the Raiders’ controversial victory over the Jets, had to listen to his boy.

“My son chewed my butt out when it happened, and all the way home,” said Cheffers, 70, a former Pacific 10 Conference football official. “I was having dinner at his house that night, and he hardly spoke to me.

“I made a mistake, I feel real bad about it. I just hope I get a chance to prove myself again.”

According to Cheffers, what happened with 32 seconds left and the Raiders on the seven-yard line was simple. He forgot that he had stopped the clock, and so he did not start it again.

By the time he remembered, Tim Brown had caught a six-yard pass and was falling down at the one-yard line.

“I don’t think something this bad has ever happened to me in this job,” said Cheffers, an 11-year veteran clock operator who is paid $200 per game by the NFL and sits far away from club officials. “I just didn’t turn the clock on. What can I tell you?”

JAY, JOEL, WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE

There could be big changes in the Pittsburgh hotel room shared by Jay and Joel Hilgenberg this weekend.

Joel will probably be returning to the unbeaten New Orleans Saints’ lineup as their starting center, meaning he will replace older brother Jay.

“So that means Joel gets control of the room,” Jay said. “The TV will have to be off, the lights will have to be off--everything that I don’t like.”

The arrangement began when Joel, who made the Pro Bowl last season, suffered a knee injury at the end of training camp. The Saints wanted to replace Joel with somebody just like him, so they called his brother, three years older and longtime center for the Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns.

Instead of playing catch in the back yard of their Iowa City home when they were kids, they used to snap the ball to one another. Jay said he will step aside Sunday without complaint.

“When we were little kids, I used to do all kinds of mean things to him, so maybe I owe him one,” said Jay, 34. “And besides, against the Rams, he stood in front of the sun and shaded me the whole game when I was on the bench. That’s what I call a good brother.”

KILL THE QUARTERBACK

OK, so you think quarterbacks are pampered. And you agree with defensive linemen who complain that because of recent rules changes, quarterbacks might as well shop at Ann Taylor.

But seriously, does anyone really want to watch Bubby Brister instead of Cunningham? Scott Mitchell instead of Dan Marino? Bill Musgrave instead of Steve Young?

Isn’t it time the competition committee considered adding even more rules to protect quarterbacks?

“Every time I make a suggestion, it’s ridiculed,” said agent Leigh Steinberg, who represents many of the league’s top quarterbacks. “Even my own clients don’t agree with me. But once a quarterback releases the ball, I just don’t think you should be allowed to hit him.

“So far this year, the carnage continues . . . and it strikes right at the heart of the appeal of football.”

The Miami Dolphins have two Monday night games and a Thanksgiving Day showdown at Dallas. Think the TV ratings will be hurt because Marino won’t play in any of those?

The Philadelphia Eagles have two Monday night games and a Sunday night game on national TV. Think advertisers will notice Cunningham’s absence?

No rule could have prevented the freak injury to Marino’s Achilles’ tendon last Sunday. But the league must admit that the new rule liberalizing intentional grounding has had only a minimal effect on sacks while doing virtually nothing to protect the many quarterbacks who are nailed after releasing the ball.

“The problem is, the speed of the game has increased so much, and there is nothing we can do about that,” said Bob Ferguson, the Denver Broncos’ director of football operations. “Everybody drafts pass rushers, develops pass rushers, designs everything around getting to the quarterback--and it’s working.”

GO FIGURE

--Only six more weeks of enduring half-baked Sunday afternoons. By the start of Week 13 on Thanksgiving Day, every team will have had its two bye weeks, leaving a full schedule for the final six weeks.

--Last Sunday, the Cleveland Browns averaged 5.6 yards per rush, and 5.5 yards per completion by Bernie Kosar.

--How could the Browns give Kosar a seven-year, $27-million contract just before benching him? Easy. The deal is not guaranteed, other than for a $1.5-million bonus. Call that severance pay.

--And we’re still waiting for Gary Clark to catch his first touchdown pass for the Phoenix Cardinals.

--Thurman Thomas of the Buffalo Bills scored his first rushing touchdown on his 102nd carry last Sunday. Before this season, he averaged a touchdown every 39.3 carries.

--One computer that knew what it was doing: Because of an electronic glitch, the game summary of the Buffalo Bills’ 52-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in last season’s Super Bowl does not appear anywhere in the Bills’ media guide.

--How muddled has the Minnesota Viking offense been under Jim McMahon? Ask kicker Fuad Reveiz, who has kicked field goals after drives that stalled at the two, four, five, eight, nine and 18-yard lines.

--Reggie White of the Green Bay Packers had two sacks in the final two minutes last Sunday night against Denver, more than the Philadelphia Eagles, his old team, have had in the last two games. For the season, White has 4 1/2 sacks. His former Eagle teammates have five.

--And we’re still waiting for the Chicago Bears’ defense to give up its first touchdown rushing.

QUICK KICKS

* SOMEHOW WE CAN’T SEE GEORGIA FRONTIERE DOING THIS: According to the Denver Broncos, who will play their Raider friends Monday night, nobody talks trash like Al Davis.

“He likes to send (his fast receivers) deep in warm-ups and then he’ll walk around you and say something like, ‘That’s what you’ve got to stop, Smith,’ or some smart . . . thing like that,” Dennis Smith, veteran Bronco safety, told reporters this week.

“He used to do that with Cliff Branch, now (Willie) Gault. It’s always something, especially if he knows who I’ll be covering. He loves to play those games; he loves it. That’s just Al.”

* HE JUST ORDERED ANOTHER STEAK: Our creative injury award this week goes to Chris Green, reserve defensive back for the Miami Dolphins.

While Green and two teammates were judging an amateur fight card early one morning in a Ft. Lauderdale restaurant, one of the patrons got excited and punched Green in the face.

We won’t even guess what sort of restaurant holds early-morning amateur fight cards.

* AT LEAST HE SAVES MONEY ON SHOES: Brad Daluiso, formerly of UCLA, once again has the oddest job in the NFL. He is paid by the New York Giants only to kick off and try field goals of more than 50 yards.

But what a leg. Sixteen of his 24 kickoffs have resulted in touchbacks, a 67% average that ranks second in the NFL behind Jason Hanson’s for the Detroit Lions. He has missed his only field-goal try, from 50 yards.

Players still talk about Daluiso’s 1991 kickoff in Rich Stadium in suburban Buffalo that traveled an estimated 92 yards and landed in the stands.

* THE KID NEEDS TO WORK ON HIS COMEBACKS: Neil Smith of the Kansas City Chiefs had this conversation with Cincinnati quarterback David Klingler last week when Smith went into the backfield after the whistle had blown and knocked the ball out Klingler’s hands.

Klingler: “Didn’t you hear the whistle?”

Smith: “No I didn’t hear the whistle. As a matter of fact, I’m deaf.”

Klingler: “You dang sure must be.”

You dang sure must be?

* WE WONDERED WHAT THAT AWFUL NOISE WAS: Said Pittsburgh Steeler inside linebacker Jerry Olsavsky about All-Pro linebacker and teammate Greg Lloyd: “He blows people up. He doesn’t just tackle people, he blows them up.”

* CHAMPION BUTTER-UPPER: Jim Harbaugh on the Chicago Bears’ new coach, Dave Wannstedt: “He will be the next Don Shula of this league, without a doubt. He’s very smart. He knows the game. As a player, you can trust him. . . . He’s going to be another (Vince) Lombardi.”

* CLASSY FAREWELL: After Eric Dickerson was traded by the Atlanta Falcons earlier this week, essentially ending his career, teammates and coaches stood in line at his locker to hug him and ask for autographs. Coach Jerry Glanville? With the team watching, he walked right past Dickerson. Never even looked at him.