Deliriously Happy

I’m sitting next to the oldest guy on the San Francisco 49ers’ creaky roster, looking closely at this potential mush head with the black-as-night hair claiming to be Young, and I have to ask.

Hey, old man, you’re not coloring your hair now, are you?

Steve Young tipped his head forward, the sun shining on an expanding bald spot, thereby risking yet another concussion.

“Easy does it,” says Young, an institution as the 49er quarterback, yet saying to other reporters earlier in the day that “it cannot be possible” that there is no one else currently older among the 49ers.

Young is old. He will turn 37 in October, a scrambler now a step or two slower, another concussion waiting to happen, and for the longest time as smart as they come in the NFL.

So why so stupid now?

Why ask for a more significant role in the 49er offense and permission to run more?

Why not adopt the strategy of Denver quarterback John Elway in recent years, who deeded his place as franchise player to running back Terrell Davis while accepting a complementary role?

Why risk becoming another life-long concussion casualty like Merrill Hoge, Al Toon, Chris Miller or Stan Humphries?

“The more I talk to old players--I’d say nine out of 10--their short-term memory, it’s gone,” says Young, compounding his own befuddling push to get hit more often. “The wife will say, ‘He doesn’t remember my name.’ ”

Maybe that explains why Young can’t repeat after me: “There are sportswriters now who can outrun me.”

Young plods on, sharp as ever according to the 49ers’ coaches at the team’s training camp here, but what would you expect them to say with the only options being tiny Ty Detmer or a rough-around-the-edges Jim Druckenmiller?

“I literally think I can play the best yet in my career,” says the ancient 49er. “I think I can expand my abilities. Earlier in my career I could do all things physically, but my game [stank]. A lot of quarterbacking is mastering the physical and the mental. I feel now I’m still physically expansive and can expand my mental game and really be on top of it.”

Somebody needs to smack this guy across the top of the noggin--gently, though. Last season opened with Tampa Bay’s chubby Warren Sapp running down Young from behind and knocking him out with a concussion, Young’s third in 10 months. Upon Young’s return, rookie Coach Steve Mariucci put the handcuffs on Young, ordering more running plays for Garrison Hearst and fewer running options for Young. As I’ve always said, smart guy this Mariucci.

Young took exception, lobbied for a change and will now be allowed to court disaster again as a run-around quarterback.

“We had a coach who had been here a whole 30 days and he sees Jerry Rice [knee] and I both go down in the first game and it looks like the whole 49ers’ legacy is about to go down the tubes,” Young says. “So his reaction is to protect his quarterback. To his credit he stayed with it and went all the way to the [NFC] championship game.

“I couldn’t argue against the logic other than just staying healthy for an entire season. I did that, and he’s over that, and we can move on.”

Better lace up the elevator spikes and warm up Detmer.

“I don’t feel physically like I have to completely revamp what I have to do. You look at any older quarterback, and it’s the legs that dictate how well you can do. And everything is still pretty much there.”

Until watching a videotape of his days at Brigham Young at a golf tournament recently, Young was unable to admit he had slowed down. “I was flying in college,” says Young. “And it’s not that I won’t admit it--losing a step--I just don’t think it’s significant yet. I don’t think my game has changed because I’ve gone from a 4.5 40 to a 4.6 or 4.7.

“It’s not that big of a deal running quarterback keepers or moving around more; we’re just going to be able to use our whole playbook now rather than cutting down on things I can do just to survive.”

Young will run more this season, but by necessity, because of an overmatched offensive line. That’s dangerous, because you can’t mention Steve Young’s name without adding a comma and the suggestion that he’s one ding to the head away from no longer being able to play football.

“You can’t say that anymore, because the doctors will tell you that’s not true,” Young says. “I never had the side effects that some of these guys had. The doctor told me with what’s happened I could have 10 of them [concussions] a year so long as I had enough time between each of them.

“I have so many things I’m interested in, if I had even one side effect like any of these guys. . . . People on the street might say, he’s nuts, but I’ve done the research.”

He’s nuts, of course, but that happens to athletes as they near the finish line. Elway turned the team over to Davis and won a Super Bowl, but he’s still coming back.

“If I felt it more, you know getting older, maybe I’d fight it more,” says Young. “I see where that’s a problem for some athletes, but I feel I’m pretty realistic.

“You have to agree that in the ‘80s and ‘90s they have made strides in medicine and health, which have expanded the time a player might play. Ten years ago guys were smoking in the locker room. I think you have to expand the number for what you really consider an old guy. I also had four free years [sitting behind Joe Montana] and that’s time I can still use.”

Remember, the guy’s a lawyer; let him keep talking and he’ll have you convinced 44-year-old Steve DeBerg is just starting his career.

But give the old man this much--two years ago a San Francisco newspaper reported the 49er front office had made the decision to give Elvis Grbac the kind of contract that would call for him to start in 1998. It’s 1998, Grbac is starting in Kansas City and Young is unchallenged, completing 67% of his passes last season.

“Listen, I appreciate the scrutiny,” says Young, the gray hairs growing as he spoke. “When we play the Jets to open the season, if you still believe I’m washed up, give me a call.”

And if not washed up, a case of short-term memory loss here will undoubtedly prevent any recollection of this discussion.