Is a Controversy Bearable? : Pro football: Kramer is Chicago’s starting quarterback, but some believe Walsh hasn’t been allowed to prove himself.

During a recent training camp lunch in Platteville, Wis., Steve Walsh was sitting at a half-empty table when fellow quarterback Erik Kramer walked over with a tray of food.

And kept walking.

Not only did Kramer not sit with Walsh, he didn’t even look at him.

Such is life these days with the Chicago Bears.

As expected, it was announced Tuesday that Kramer will be the Bears’ opening-day starter Sept. 3, and that Walsh will be his backup.

Kramer skips off into September with a sigh as big as Butkus.

Walsh rubs his head and looks for a license plate.

And the often tumultuous home of one of the NFL’s oldest franchises is now experiencing that most intriguing football byplay, the quarterback controversy.

Kramer vs. Walsh.

Erik Kramer . . . the Southern California guy with the regular-season quarterback rating lower than California’s average freeway speed.

Steve Walsh . . . who has thrown one more interception than touchdown passes while toiling six years for three teams.

Van Brocklin vs. Waterfield, it isn’t.

But in an era when each NFL team is lucky to have one guy who can still throw the ball, it is the only quarterback controversy the league has to offer.

So enjoy. Even if it isn’t Simms vs. Hostetler, it has its share of subplots and intrigue.

“What is it they say about the truth setting you free?” asked Bear Coach Dave Wannstedt. “All we’re looking for here is the truth.”

The truth is that neither guy can lead the Bears to the Super Bowl, not that anybody on the team’s much-admired coaching staff will admit it.

After coaching this generic collection of helmets and socks to the NFC semifinals last season, the staff figures it can still match that achievement this year under one condition:

The starting quarterback doesn’t get in the way.

“The guy that wins is not going to be the guy who makes the most great plays,” Wannstedt said earlier in training camp. “It will be the guy who makes the least amount of bad plays.”

Kramer, who has a 74.5 lifetime rating, clinched the starting job Sunday night in an exhibition game against the Arizona Cardinals by throwing “only” five bad passes.

Walsh threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown.

For a second consecutive week.

End of discussion.

Erik Kramer . . . the guy who forgets to shave, who swaggers into a huddle and calls a play by ordering a couple of guys to go deep and the rest of the guys to knock somebody on their butts.

Steve Walsh . . . the technician who not only calls plays, but explains them to receivers, who actually worries whether the center will snap the ball laces up.

Kramer wonders why the heck he even needs a center.

Staubach vs. Morton, it isn’t.

“I would think that after Sunday night, there shouldn’t be much controversy there,” said George Young, the New York Giants’ general manager. “But it will flare up again periodically.”

Young was the Giants’ boss in 1990, when backup Hostetler threw 87 passes in the regular season while embroiled in a controversy with starter Simms.

Hostetler came off the bench to replace the injured Simms in the playoffs and led the Giants to a Super Bowl victory.

“So you need to endure it, but it’s tough,” Young said of quarterback controversies. “It’s really a difficult problem. People in the organization take sides on it. Owners take sides on it.”

When asked if such a controversy can divide an entire team, Young said, firmly, “It can.”

The potential for that is there in Chicago.

Many of the players favor Walsh, who took over for the slumping Kramer last season and led the team to an 8-4 sprint-out and a first-round upset of the Minnesota Vikings in the playoffs.

Guard Jay Leeuwenburg admitted, “We are more familiar with Steve. He has shown really good leadership. He puts us in a good position to win.”

And Kramer?

“He obviously has better arm strength,” Leeuwenburg said. “That’s the major difference.”

And that is why the coaching staff and management love Kramer.

Walsh may not lose many games with dumb plays. But despite Wannstedt’s comments to the contrary, the Bears are teased by the notion that Kramer can win games with great plays.

That is why they pushed to sign Kramer from Detroit as a free agent only six days into the signing period in February of 1994.

That is why he was given an $8.1-million multiyear contract.

That is why Walsh was signed two months later as an afterthought.

And that is why the results of this summer’s competition seemed predestined.

Some insiders wondered about inequities in the first two exhibition games, when game plans appeared to give Kramer more passes than Walsh, and substitution patterns seemed to allow Kramer to spend more time with the first team.

And in Sunday night’s showdown, it was obviously Kramer’s job to lose.

Kramer was given more than three quarters against the Cardinals, Walsh slightly more than eight minutes.

Typically, Kramer was more spectacular, with two touchdown passes against a steady blitz.

But Walsh--after putting his team in the hole with the interception--showed leadership by bringing the Bears back to the brink of victory. But then Rashaan Salaam lost a fumble in Cardinal territory and Kevin Butler missed a 37-yard field goal try in the final seconds.

“The situation I’ve been put in during the past couple of weeks, it’s kind of made me press,” Walsh said.

This, even though Kramer was 1-4 as a Bear starter last year, with eight touchdowns and eight interceptions.

Wannstedt, however, says that if he were biased toward Kramer, Walsh wouldn’t be on the roster.

After all, Walsh was a free agent last winter and Wannstedt could have let him walk. If Walsh had been promised a starting job elsewhere, he would have walked.

But nobody wanted him as a starter, so Wannstedt gladly welcomed him back at a base salary equal to Kramer’s $1.5 million for this season.

“We could have used the old Paul Brown theory of dealing with a quarterback controversy--get rid of one,” Wannstedt said. “But I didn’t want to do that. I thought it was better for the team to have them both here, competing like crazy.”

Another notable Walsh, this one a former coaching great, warns that the Bears must be careful.

Bill Walsh--no relation to Steve--said a quarterback controversy is great in the summer. And death in the fall.

“Quarterback controversies are not good for the team,” said Walsh, who presided over the Joe Montana-Steve Young battles in San Francisco. “The most vital consideration is the amount of practice time and attention the starter gets. You just can’t share that.

“To perform at his best, one quarterback has to take 80% of the snaps in practice and be the focal point of all conversations, the point man for the football team.”

Walsh added, “Having two men in that position is counter to everything that being a starting quarterback stands for.”

So Kramer it will be. And Kramer it should remain for most of the season, even if he doesn’t quite believe it yet.

“He certainly hasn’t named me the starter for the entire season or half the season, he named me the starter for the season opener,” Kramer said of his coach.

But Wannstedt acknowledges that he has other worries--an undersized defensive line and a couple of new players, Salaam and wide receiver Michael Timpson, who seem allergic to the pigskin.

He should give the ball to Kramer and get out of the way while his team plows through the league’s fourth-easiest schedule.

He should also not forget to duck.

Said Mark Carrier, Bear safety, “They are both adequate, [pause] very good quarterbacks.”

Bobby Layne vs. Sid Luckman vs. Johnny Lujack, it isn’t.