QUICK KICKS

* HAVE IT YOUR WAY, JIM KELLY: How bad have things been for the Kansas City Chief defensive backfield?

Playing safety for them in Sunday’s AFC championship game will be a player they recently signed from . . . Burger King.

That is where Felix Wright had been working when he was recently reunited with his former Cleveland Brown coach, Marty Schottenheimer.

Wright, 33, has not played this season. Last month, he was the guest of honor at his own retirement party.

Two weeks later, the Chiefs called, begging. This is what happens when you go through nine defensive backs and three of your four opening-day starters are on injured reserve.

“In my wildest dreams, I never thought I’d be here,” Wright said.

* NEWTON’S LAWS: Nate Newton, the cheerful guard for the Dallas Cowboys, held court in the locker room Friday afternoon, offering as much wit as wisdom.

On the collapse of the New York Giants: “For the Giants to get past the 49ers, I knew that would take a damn miracle. It would have taken chemical warfare. The Giants were so tired after playing us and the Vikings, you could see it when the 49ers blitzed. Nobody damn moved.”

On the current athletic wear commercial featuring Dennis Hopper sniffing Bruce Smith’s shoes: “I really like that when he’s smelling Bruce’s shoes and says, ‘Bad things happen, man, bad things.’ Yeah, like foot fungus.”

On Coach Jimmy Johnson: “He always says, ‘If I don’t tell you something, face to face, then don’t believe what those . . . write about you in the newspaper.’ But then he put into his book that, ‘Yeah, sometimes I try to motivate players through the media.’ I don’t know which Coach Johnson to believe.”

* ADD NEWTON: During the post-practice interview session in the Cowboy locker room Friday, Newton’s voice boomed over the intercom. He was warning players not to appear on linebacker Ken Norton’s radio show without receiving their appearance gift first.

Newton claimed that Norton owed several players, including himself, a pair of sunglasses. He announced that this was unfair, considering, “the man lives in a $500,000 house in Plano. He has all these sunglasses in that $500,000 house in Plano.”

Later, Newton said that the announcement was not a practical joke.

“This is serious,” he said. “Norton acts like he’s been hanging around Bill Clinton.”

* FROM ONE THRILLER TO ANOTHER: When asked if he could guarantee a victory as did his coach, Emmitt Smith of the Cowboys replied: “Somebody once told me there are only three things guaranteed in life: You are going to stay the same color, you are going to pay taxes and you are going to die.”

* THAT’S WHY THE VIKING DEFENSE LOOKED CONFUSED: While trying in vain to stop the Giants’ rushing attack several weeks ago in the first round of the playoffs, Minnesota nose tackle Esera Tuaolo was shouting the defensive signals in Samoan.