Early Start to Out With the Old, In With the New

Week 14 in the NFL is over and ain’t life grand if you are a quarterback named Kurt Warner, Shaun King or Ray Lucas?

The new kids on the block don’t need name tags anymore.

No need to wait. The new age for quarterbacks has already arrived in the NFL. John Elway has retired, Steve Young may, Randall Cunningham is being shoved back into involuntary retirement and Dan Marino is playing as if he’s ready to retire.

THREE STANDING TALL

1. The St. Louis Rams--They won the NFC West and now people are getting on them for supposedly running up the score.

Give them a break. They don’t know how to act with a lead. They’re so accustomed to getting stomped on, they probably look at the scoreboard and think it’s malfunctioning.

2. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers--They lead the NFC Central two weeks after losing their starting quarterback.

Actually, they lead the NFC Central because they lost their starting quarterback. King has stepped in for Trent Dilfer, who suffered a broken collarbone against Seattle, and supplied the steady hand at the controls that was missing with Dilfer, a steadiness the Buccaneers needed to complement their punishing running game and devastating defense.

Watching King operate, you would never know he hadn’t thrown a pass in the NFL when Dilfer went down.

3. The Washington Redskins--Sunday’s victory over the Arizona Cardinals allowed the Redskins to hold onto sole possession of first place in the NFC East with only three weeks to play.

Has Coach Norv Turner, who has proven to be a better escape artist than Houdini, again foiled those who were assured that this was the season he would run out of pardons and excuses and ways to avoid the pink slip?

THREE HEADING FOR A FALL

1. The Seattle Seahawks--What happened? Three weeks ago, they ruled the AFC West without opposition in sight. Now, three Seahawk losses later, the Kansas City Chiefs have tied them and Seattle Coach Mike Holmgren’s genius status is in question.

When the Seahawks got off to a fast start, observers were surprised to see them do so well, despite the absence of holdout receiver Joey Galloway. Now there is equal surprise that, despite his return, they are doing so poorly. There’s no sure connection, but the more he plays, the worse they play.

2. The Miami Dolphins--It doesn’t take this long to knock the rust off a sunken treasure chest. In the three games since he returned after sitting out five games because of a pinched nerve in his neck, Marino has been a model of inconsistency. The Dolphins have lost all three.

3. The Green Bay Packers--They are not bad. Yet. They are just average. And that’s something Packer fans haven’t had to accept since quarterback Brett Favre arrived.

Sunday’s loss to the Carolina Panthers was the third for Green Bay in seven home games and the first time the Packers have lost at home in December in the Favre era.

Frozen tundra just isn’t what it used to be.

PARCELLS’ PET

Lucas won the heart of his coach, Bill Parcells, Sunday. The poise, the decision-making and the quick throws are nice. Parcells thought enough of Lucas to pick him up on waivers from his old club, the New England Patriots.

But what Parcells, a long-time defensive coach, truly admires is toughness. That is what he demanded of Drew Bledsoe in New England.

That is what he got from his new quarterback, Lucas, against the Dolphins.

Lucas, who was handed the Jets’ reins only a month ago, was badly shaken when a Dolphin defender smashed his helmet into Lucas’ facemask in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game. Lucas was on the ground for several moments while trainers attended to him, then he walked to the sideline like a fighter trying to recover from a knockdown.

But one play later, Lucas was back in the game. And on his first pass, in the face of another furious Dolphin rush, he never flinched, lofting a high-arching throw from the Miami 24-yard line that Keyshawn Johnson caught in the end zone for the touchdown, giving New York a lead it did not relinquish.

And it gave Parcells an impression of Lucas he will not soon forget.

Still, Parcells being Parcells, Lucas doesn’t have to worry about getting overconfident.

“He could go sour,” Parcells said Monday. “But I am happy with the progress. There’s a lot of tests he hasn’t passed yet, but he knows about those tests. He knows what I am talking about.”

YOU HAVEN’T WON ANYTHING YET, ROOKIE

Enjoy the Heisman Trophy you won Saturday, Ron Dayne, but don’t bother bringing it to training camp. It won’t bring you one yard closer to a spot on an NFL roster.

In college football, the list of Heisman Trophy winners is a veritable Who’s Who. But in pro football, Heisman Trophy winners often become who? Many have been brought quickly and cruelly back to reality when they try to leap the chasm from college to pro football.

The list of former winners who never played a down of pro football, for instance, starts right at the top. Halfback Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago, who won the first Heisman in 1935, chose business over the Bears. Of course in those fledgling years of the NFL, playing football was not necessarily the best career choice.

But even in recent years, looking at the list of Heisman winners, for every Eddie George and Barry Sanders, there are a Gino Torretta and a Charlie Ward.

Defensive back Charles Woodson won the 1997 Heisman Trophy. Quarterback Peyton Manning was the runner-up.

Find a general manager who will tell you he’d rather have Woodson than Manning now and he’s probably got the time to talk to you because he’s out of work.

Ricky Williams was last year’s Heisman winner. Edgerrin James wasn’t even a factor in the balloting. Yet James, running for the Indianapolis Colts, leads Williams of the New Orleans Saints in yards gained, 1,311-816; average yards, 4.4-3.8; and touchdowns rushing, 9-2.

Two Heisman winners connected to the Athletic Association of Western Universities (now the Pacific 10 Conference) were pro disappointments, UCLA quarterback Gary Beban (1967), who failed to make it with the Washington Redskins and Denver Broncos, and Oregon State quarterback Terry Baker (1962), who--after being made a first-round draft choice of the then-Los Angeles Rams--threw one touchdown pass in three seasons.

So what goes wrong with these guys?

Pat Haden, a former USC and Ram quarterback who is now a television analyst, knows firsthand about the gap between college football and the pros.

“It’s a huge difference,” he said. “The skill level is so much better in the pros. The players are 20-30% quicker. In college, you may face only three teams in a season that have a chance to beat you. In the pros, it’s every team.”

Another factor is the system. In college, a coach with one standout may design his system around that star. In the pros, such allowances are seldom made.

“A player in college may not only be in a system well-designed to bring out his attributes, but he may also have good players around him to protect him,” Haden said. “But a player who ultimately turns out to be mediocre is not going to be significant in the NFL.”

So let Dayne have his moment in the sun. For some Heisman winners, that’s the brightest it ever gets.

QUESTION MARKS

* Minnesota Viking receiver Cris Carter, who left Sunday’s game against the Chiefs in the second quarter because of a sprained ankle, could be sidelined the rest of the regular season. Carter has started 110 consecutive games.

* Detroit Lion quarterback Charlie Batch, who has missed the Lions’ last five games with what was thought to be a sprained right thumb, actually has a slight fracture in the thumb. That was revealed when X-rays were taken Monday. However, Batch has not been ruled out of this Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears.

* Dallas Cowboy running back Emmitt Smith won’t know for several days if he will be able to play next week against the Jets after injuring his groin against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.