Double Threat at Tailback Lifts Jaguars

Jacksonville’s Super Bowl favorites, who expect to breeze through Cleveland today and on to the playoffs, won Monday night’s game for a unique reason.

The Jaguars have equally efficient, equally big, fast tailbacks: James Stewart, who weighs 224 pounds, and Fred Taylor, who weighs 226.

They also have similar speed and styles.

In the constrictive free-agent salary-cap era, no other pro club can match what Jacksonville has with that pair.

If a rival loses a comparable ballcarrier to injury these days, it must pack it in.

Witness Denver after losing Terrell Davis.

If the Jaguars lose one, they plug in the other to win a game they could have won in no other way Monday night.

Denver made the big play in the cold rain of a spectacular fourth quarter: Brian Griese’s long jump throw to tight end Byron Chamberlain on the 57-yard pass play that tied the score at 24-24.

But that score lasted a mere 83 seconds.

To win, 27-24, the Jaguars simply ran back down the field with Taylor after Stewart had been hurt.

Ironically, it’s their injuries in recent years that have kept both Stewart and Taylor in Jacksonville.

No matter how magical he is, no team will lay out salary-capped millions for a wounded free agent.

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Pressure offenses: In today’s game of the week, the Washington Redskins will show they have the kind of team that can slow down the Indianapolis Colts.

Or so they hope.

Like the Colts with Peyton Manning and Edgerrin James, the Redskins can apply constant two-threat pressure with passer Brad Johnson and runner Stephen Davis, as they did last Sunday to overwhelm the Arizona Cardinals, 28-3.

In Davis’ first four NFL seasons, he was seldom heard from until Johnson came over from the Minnesota Vikings this year to give Washington a passing threat.

With that, Davis has jumped all the way to first in the NFL in yards gained.

The Redskins in recent years hadn’t been a successful passing team with Gus Frerotte, who has made Detroit a contender this year.

Johnson has changed all that.

His offensive linemen, like all offensive linemen, would rather block for the runner than pass block for him, but they may remember that they were 6-10 running the ball last year--with Davis, but without Johnson.

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Interactive threats: There are three reasons in common for the 1999 achievements of the 11-2 Indianapolis Colts and the 11-2 St. Louis Rams:

* Because both teams lost so often for so many years, accumulating barrels of draft choices, they have both had so many shots in so many drafts that they couldn’t miss drafting a few great ones.

* Each team has a solid head coach and a first-class offensive coach: Jim Mora and Tom Moore of the Colts, Dick Vermeil and Mike Martz of the Rams.

* Each has significant talent at quarterback as well as at running back: Manning and James of the Colts, Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk of the Rams.

Perhaps the best single explanation for their success is that Moore and Martz both coach interactive two-threat football, meaning that, on nearly every play, their opponents have a pass and a run to worry about.

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Similar attacks: The Colts and Rams won in identical ways last week.

As Indianapolis held off New England, 20-15, Manning passed for 186 yards and two touchdowns when the Patriots were looking for James, who ran 20 times for 101 yards when the Patriots were looking for Manning.

As St. Louis turned back New Orleans, 30-14, the interactive threats were passer Warner with 346 yards and two touchdowns, and runner Faulk with 154 and two.

It was aggressive offense, as usual, that put the Colts and Rams both ahead in the first half, when, respectively, they led, 14-6 and 24-14.

But it was easier for the Rams to do that than the Colts, whose opponents Sunday were individually as talented as the Indianapolis players.

The Patriots would have won the game if, on three or four plays, they had made the right pre-snap guess on whom to hit, James or Manning.

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One threat insufficient: Of the other powers who won and lost last week, the Green Bay Packers dropped a 33-31 game because, with runner Dorsey Levens sidelined because of an injury, they could threaten Carolina only with a passer, Brett Favre.

In other words, they had lost the edge that Jacksonville continues to enjoy with Taylor and Stewart.

By contrast, in the fight for first place in the NFC Central, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers could overcome Detroit Sunday, 23-16, because they’re now a team with three threats, rookie passer Shaun King and two runners, Warrick Dunn and Mike Alstott.

Although Tampa Bay and Detroit have both been defensive teams with conservative offenses, both came out passing this time. The Buccaneer play-caller, Mike Shula, attacked more aggressively with young passer King than he ever did with veteran Trent Dilfer, who is injured.

With King and their great defense, the Buccaneers are suddenly a complete team that surely can threaten the high-flying Rams in the playoffs.

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Short-Pass Plays: Tampa Bay’s weakness is a cast of mediocre wide receivers, but King showed what you can do when that’s all you have, throwing to eight Buccaneers for 297 yards.

Although he would rather throw bombs, King’s short-pass game was the more powerful, particularly when involving Dunn or Alstott.

Though opposite types--Dunn is a scatback, Alstott a plugger--they’re a unique pair, each of them effective on runs from scrimmage, but each more productive on short pass plays. Against Detroit, that gave them head starts unencumbered by the heavy scrimmage traffic induced by a good defense.

If the downside for Tampa Bay is a lack of quality receivers, one upside is that there are more kinds of short-pass plays than anything else for such as Dunn and Alstott.

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Selected Short Subjects:

* The New York Giants are suddenly back in the NFC East race--tied for second with Dallas, one game behind Washington--as a consequence of the rebirth of quarterback Kerry Collins.

* Proving that there’s nothing like experience to make a quarterback, Carolina’s Steve Beuerlein is having his best year in his 13th NFL season, validating the judgment of 1940s Hall of Fame quarterback Sammy Baugh, who says:

“There’s no sport in the world nearly so involved as football. Automatically, just by living, a quarterback gets better every year. My best season in football was my 15th. My three best were my 13th, 14th and 15th.”

* Football in the ‘90s is so involved that a one-yard mistake beat Green Bay on Sunday when, on third and 15, wide receiver Corey Bradford ran a 14-yard pass pattern, requiring the Packers to punt on fourth and one.

It was the kind of mistake that a gifted second-year pro shouldn’t be making--but on this year’s Packers, it’s the kind of mistake that quarterback Favre can’t quite overcome.