BACK BREAKERS

They became aware of each other through a mutual friend, and each saw in the other something of himself and something to admire.

It didn’t matter that their personalities were different, that Denver running back Terrell Davis seemed to be running away from something. From the blinding headaches that plagued him from age 7 until he was in college and learned he had migraines that could be treated with medication. From the too-often drunk father whose idea of toughening his four youngest sons was to line them up in the bedroom of their San Diego apartment, squeeze his .38 special and shoot a bullet over each boy’s head. From the guilt he felt when his father, Joe, whose way of providing for his family sometimes flouted the law, died from complications of lupus in 1987 at age 42.

Nor did it matter that Atlanta’s Jamal Anderson seemed to be running toward something. Perhaps toward the approval and warmth that enveloped him as a child in Woodland Hills, where he was doted on by the celebrities who employed his father as a security consultant. Muhammad Ali did card tricks for him. Sugar Ray Leonard sang at his father’s birthday party.

Such love and security made Anderson sunny, glib, able to enjoy the moment; Davis looked ahead warily, worrying about the next migraine or the next time his parents would split up and separate him from his brothers.

“I’m not used to walking around and being recognized. I’ve only been in this situation 2 1/2, three years,” said Davis, who led the NFL with 2,008 rushing yards, to runner-up Anderson’s 1,846. “He’s been around big stars so long, he kind of knows how to handle it. He welcomes it. That’s fine. If that’s your identity, I have no problem with that.”

Despite the contrast in styles and physique--both are 5 feet 11 but Anderson outweighs Davis by 24 pounds, at 234--they have became friends based on their common hunger to test their limits. They joke about who gets more yards, but both are savoring their unlikely journey to the top of the NFL mountain.

“I like a lot of things about Terrell,” Anderson said. “He’s tremendously tough. If I had to put a team together, in a running back I’m looking for toughness, vision and athletic ability. Can you cut? Can you catch? Can you block and can you do all those things equally well? I think Terrell can do all those things. He does so many things well, you just pull one out of a hat, he does it well.”

Davis, who overcame a migraine to rush for 157 yards and three touchdowns and earn most valuable player honors in the Broncos’ 31-24 victory over Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXII, readily returns Anderson’s compliments.

“Jamal is a more patient running back. He reads things well and he stops on a dime,” Davis said. “He makes those fast bursts. I don’t stop. I’m speed and go. He has a lot of strength in his legs and upper body. . . . The only thing we have in common is sometimes I try to be a power runner like Jamal. I don’t have breakaway speed. If I had to go 90 yards, I probably couldn’t get there. Fifty, 60, I could get there.”

Each man’s strength of character may be his best trait.

Without his father’s tough discipline, Davis drifted through Morse High before transferring to Lincoln Prep, where he was a fullback and nose guard. He was on the scout team at Long Beach State but left after Coach George Allen died and the program was dropped. He transferred to Georgia, where he played in a pass-oriented offense and was no favorite of the coach, Ray Goff. Because his talents weren’t maximized, Davis wasn’t taken until the sixth round of the 1995 draft, the 196th pick.

Yet, Bronco Coach Mike Shanahan was sure he had unearthed a gem. “He wasn’t a great player out of college, but he had that type of athletic ability,” he said. “We saw him as a third-round pick and we had signed another running back [Aaron Craver], so we took him in the sixth round. Once he came in and adjusted to our system, you could see in a short time he was going to be something very special.

“He’s the most complete player I’ve been around at the running back position. He came in as a mature athlete. Very seldom does a kid come in as a sixth-round draft choice and have the maturity of Terrell Davis. He always wanted to become a great player.”

Davis made an immediate impact, rushing for 1,117 yards and becoming the lowest-drafted NFL rookie to rush for 1,000 yards.

“What people like about sports is underdog roles, not just teams but people,” said Davis, who rushed for a Bronco playoff record 199 yards and two touchdowns in 21 carries in a 38-3 divisional playoff victory over Miami and had 167 yards and a franchise-record 32 carries in the Broncos’ 23-10 victory over the New York Jets in the AFC championship game.

“When you have so-called professionals telling you, ‘This guy is never going to make the team,’ and ‘You certainly can’t play on this team,’ it motivates you.”

Anderson, considered small for a fullback and slow for a tailback, was chosen 201st, in the seventh round of the 1994 draft. He also found motivation in proving teams were wrong to pass on him, and he found his salvation when the Falcons fired June Jones, scrapped Jones’ run-and-shoot strategy and brought in Dan Reeves as coach. Anderson has three consecutive 1,000-yard seasons, including an NFL-record 410 carries this season.

“I like to be physical. I like to come in and right away run as hard as you can run, block as hard as you can block,” said Anderson, who rushed for 113 yards in 29 carries with two touchdowns in the Falcons’ 20-18 divisional playoff victory over the 49ers. He rushed for only 67 yards against Minnesota in the NFC title game, but he caught a touchdown pass in the Falcons’ 30-27 overtime stunner.

“Are you hurting? Are you sore? There are lot of times, carrying the ball 410 times, that I would have liked to take myself out of a game, but you’ve got to keep doing it and playing as hard in the fourth quarter as you did in the first quarter,” he said. “I don’t really juke a lot of guys in open field, but I think at the line of scrimmage, maybe, people don’t expect me to make a quick cut, to cut back on them on certain plays. Or they think if I’m on one side of the field I can’t get back to the other side. I think maybe that’s the biggest surprise. But the cat is out of the bag now. Everybody knows my game. I used to be able to sneak up on people.”

What’s the best way to compensate for losing the element of surprise? “Pray,” he said. “Treat your linemen really, really nice.”

Like Davis, who plans to take fullback Howard Griffith with him to the Pro Bowl, Anderson shares his success with teammates. He bought his linemen big-screen TVs to reward their blocking, and a big game Sunday might cost him much more. “I hear he’s going to buy yachts if we get him 200 yards,” Falcon offensive tackle Bob Whitfield said. “Maybe a Bentley or something.”

He must do it against a defense that allowed the Dolphins and Jets 28 yards rushing in 26 carries. “This is a great challenge. It’s going to be a lot of fun,” he said. “Denver has done a great job attacking the line of scrimmage and playing off blocks really, really well. They don’t stay blocked. If we can get our guys to sustain their blocks we can have success.”

Davis is already inspiring comparisons to Jim Brown and Walter Payton. His performance Sunday will give a measure of where he may someday rank.

“The one thing I do is I never let people put pressure on me. I put pressure on myself,” he said. “I set my own standards and goals, and each year I want to come back and do the best job I can do. For me, my goals are long term rather than short term. I’ve always said that when I leave this game, I want to leave my signature on it. By doing that, I can come back each year and be the best that I can be. . . .

“The one thing that scares me the most is failing, especially on this level. I know how it is and it scares me not to be on this level. One day it’s not going to be there. I’m not going to be on top and I’m going to have to deal with that. But while I’m here and I’m having success early, I’m trying to do everything possible to stay on this level. Whatever that means, or whatever I have to do, I’ll do it.”

Denver vs. Atlanta

Sunday

3:15 p.m. Ch. 11

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A Running Comparison

Atlanta’s Jamal Anderson and Denver’s Terrell Davis began playing full-time at running back for their teams in 1995. A look at how they match up: *--*

Anderson CATEGORY Davis 26 Age 26 5-11 Height 5-11 234 Weight 210 1,846 Yards (1998) 2,008 410 Carries (1998) 392 4.5 Average (1998) 5.1 14 TDs (1998) 21 4,063 Yards (career) 6,413 973 Carries (career) 1,343 4.2 Average (career) 4.8 27 TDs (career) 56

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