Game Within Game Will Be Trojan War

Well, here they go, Tony and Willie, nose to nose, friends turned foes, Trojans in a trench. Tony Boselli, 6 feet 7, 325 pounds, is the guy you’ve got to get by to get to the Jacksonville Jaguar quarterback. Willie McGinest, 6-5, 255, is the guy who’s got to get by him, a New England Patriot who is curious how Boselli’s name will be entered in the McGinest book of records.

Their time together at USC didn’t prepare Tony and Willie for this, any more than it did for the snowfall Saturday that provided a frostin’ from Providence to Boston. These guys know blitzes better than they do blizzards. And they know each other, not only from being college teammates, but from studying film, looking for ways to get the upper hand in today’s AFC championship game at Foxboro, Mass.

Boselli is the NFL’s offensive lineman of the hour, although, as McGinest says, “I played against Tony every day in college, so I know how good he is.”

McGinest is a defensive player who deserves to be better known, although, as Boselli says, “In the playoffs, you’re not going to play against a guy who isn’t any good.”

One of them is going to his first Super Bowl.

The cat or the Pat.

It could be Boselli, who was so ill before last weekend’s playoff game against Denver, teammates dropped to their knees around his sick bed, holding hands to pray for Tony’s speedy recovery on the road to Elwayville. A day later, Boselli protected quarterback Mark Brunell from harm during Jacksonville’s totally unexpected 30-27 victory.

The only sickness that came over McGinest, before the Patriot playoff game against Pittsburgh, was from hearing raves about the hot Steelers and their cool nicknames. “It was ‘Slash’ this, and ‘Blitzburgh,’ and ‘the Bus,’ ” McGinest would say later, after putting Kordell Stewart, the Pittsburgh defense and Jerome Bettis out of his misery, New England winning, 28-3.

What it meant was that these Trojan warriors of old--Boselli was the second pick of the 1995 NFL draft, McGinest the fourth pick of the 1994 draft--would go helmet-to-helmet in the AFC title game, not unlike Mike Garrett having to catch fellow USC alumnus Willie Wood from behind after an interception in Super Bowl I, 30 years ago this week.

Tony lines up at left tackle.

Willie is at right defensive end.

Check out their hand-to-hand combat whenever Jacksonville has the football. If it is anything like Boselli’s battles with Bruce Smith of Buffalo and with Alfred Williams of Denver in previous playoff games, it should be worth watching, particularly with New England needing to keep that Jag-in-a-box Brunell from springing all over the field.

By keeping Smith, the AFC’s sack leader, from getting to Brunell even once, Boselli’s popularity boomed in north Florida, where kids now run around with a “71” on their jerseys, an offensive lineman’s number, which is something you don’t see every day.

Smith felt that Boselli got a little too much credit, saying it wasn’t like the guy had gone one-on-one with him all day. Williams, however, who in the AFC was second only to Smith in sacks, believed otherwise. After viewing a tape of the Buffalo game, the Denver player said of Boselli, “He won that battle, hands down.”

Overnight stardom was his.

“It was a big game because it was the playoffs, and it was a big game because it was Bruce Smith,” Boselli says. “With his reputation, the type of player he is, people take notice of it.”

Then came the Bronco game.

Boselli was looking forward to it. He had grown up in Boulder, Colo., where, come to think of it, he definitely did know something about snow. But flu left him in bed, with a tummy ache, headache, the works. Knowing how devoutly Boselli had accepted the Christian faith last spring, teammates came to his bedside, led by tight end Rich Griffith, who said, “We prayed for him, and boom, he had a great game.”

“God actually healed me,” Boselli agreed.

He--Boselli, that is--guaranteed a victory to Jacksonville’s players on game day. He let Williams get by him to sack Brunell only once. He cleared holes for Natrone Means. The offense amassed 446 yards against the Broncos, on top of 409 against the Bills.

Tom Coughlin, the Jaguar coach, praises Boselli from head to toe. He says, “When you have someone who has the feet he has, he’s going to be a good pass blocker. For a young player, he has a unique ability to pick up assignments. Tony has very little problem with the mental part of the game. He gives us a great foundation for the future. He’s a cornerstone.”

He has been one from the beginning, being the first player Jacksonville drafted.

Boselli, however, missed all of his rookie training camp, plus three games, because of a leg injury.

“Most of last year, my knee was about 60%,” he says.

“Tony’s going to be one of the best tackles in the league,” predicts McGinest, who rates teammate Bruce Armstrong the best. “I wasn’t surprised by what he did against Bruce Smith. I was telling everybody here what was going to happen. Tony’s just now earning respect for the way he shut down Bruce. But he’s been doing that all year long.”

Ah, but will he shut down Willie?

McGinest must get to Brunell. He has led the Pats in sacks two years running. He grabs quarterbacks the way he grabbed his violin, back when he took music lessons in Long Beach as a kid--by the neck.

Probably not stronger than Smith or Williams, the thing about McGinest is he’s faster. Those other guys couldn’t catch Brunell when he began scrambling.

“He is so quick,” Boselli says of McGinest. “I learned a lot of things in college, and that was one of them.”

Today, either Tony or Willie will graduate to Super Bowl XXXI. A couple of Trojans, in search of Roman numerals.