Huard Is Part of Emerging Trend in NFL

What makes 1999 different in pro football is that it’s the year of the young quarterback.

And the learning curve has been a league-wide happening.

In one conspicuous case last weekend, Miami’s Damon Huard grew up on national television--in the first half of the New England game--after he couldn’t make a first down in the first quarter.

Catching the hang of it all in the second quarter, Huard drove the Dolphins to a 10-10 halftime tie.

Next, improving some more in the third quarter, he drove the Dolphins to the front with the two touchdowns that made it 24-10. Miami eventually won, 27-17, though Huard left with a broken nose.

At 26, he is a backup quarterback from the University of Washington who a week earlier could generate only three points and 101 net yards in a 23-3 defeat at Buffalo, and who until 1999 had thrown only nine NFL passes.

Of Huard and most of the other young quarterbacks this year, it can be said: They don’t learn overnight, but they learn.

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Big Mistake-Big Play: Chances are, the Dolphins’ new young passer will spend much of what’s left of 1999 watching veteran Dan Marino--but when they call for him, Huard will be nourished by a remembrance of how, last Sunday, he progressed in 30 minutes from big mistake to big play.

The big mistake was a first-quarter pitch to a running back who wasn’t looking for the ball, which was fumbled into a New England lead, 7-0.

The big play was a third-down shotgun pass from Huard, a graduate of the NFL’s European league, to arena-league graduate Oronde Gadsden, a second-year Dolphin wide receiver who has been growing up along with the new passer.

That play produced 16 yards for Miami’s first first down of the game--in the second minute of the second quarter--and Huard liked it so much that in his next third-down crisis, he shotgunned it again to Gadsden, who eventually caught both of Huard’s touchdown passes.

They’re learning together.

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Fine time: A defensive lineman who knows better tried to get a sack with his helmet last week.

On a plainly illegal play, New England’s Willie McGinest lowered his head and plowed full steam ahead into quarterback Huard’s head.

It was a don’t-know, don’t-care move by McGinest, who was bent on slamming the passer, hang the cost.

For unsportsmanlike conduct, the cost was 15 yards, which, if there were any justice, would have been increased by the league by many thousands of dollars in a fine. Mark Carrier of the Detroit Lions was suspended for a game and fined $50,000 for a similar hit the same day on Green Bay receiver Antonio Freeman.

It’s tough enough grooming young quarterbacks to play against legal defenses.

It’s absurd for the NFL to let players like McGinest, Warren Sapp and Bill Romanowski kill them off illegally.

The next time McGinest saw Huard last Sunday was also the last time. Carefully turning his head away from the passer--having learned that lesson--McGinest swiped him with what seemed to be a legal, one-armed thrust, breaking Huard’s nose. That’s what put the young quarterback out of the game.

But there’s a big difference between a broken nose and a concussion.

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Pure passer: The NFL athlete of the year in many estimates is quarterback Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts, who, with eight wins in 10 starts, is possibly the most improved player in the league.

Although surrounded by exceptional college talent, Manning wasn’t all that impressive there personally, for a while, as he realized himself the day he decided to hang in school an extra year to play as a graduate student.

Beating Philadelphia’s 3-8 team last Sunday in only three quarters, 44-17, might not have been Manning’s most marvelous accomplishment, but you could see three things coming together that might in time lead him to the top of the NFL:

* His work ethic is the sternest and the NFL’s most complete since Jerry Rice was young.

* His passing motion makes Manning a nearly exact duplicate of Joe Namath, the Hall of Famer who developed that style. It’s a shot-putter’s motion, not the roundhouse motion of John Unitas.

* His running back, rookie Edgerrin James, who ran for 117 yards Sunday when Manning passed for 235.

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Polian’s Two Aces: It’s about time to honor--if that’s the right word--the executive who brought Manning and James together in Indianapolis.

Bill Polian, the team president, was identified three years ago by owner James Irsay as the pro football man most likely to succeed in Indiana.

Twice in the last two drafts, Polian has had to make inordinately difficult decisions.

Last year, he could have chosen either Manning or quarterback Ryan Leaf, who was to become the pride of San Diego.

This spring he could have chosen either James or running back Ricky Williams, who in the trade of the year cost the New Orleans Saints their entire 1999 draft.

More than one football expert criticized the Colts for passing on Leaf and more particularly on Williams.

But as Polian kept saying, Manning has the better future, certainly, and James is the better receiver.

The front-runner for AFC rookie of the year, James, as a receiver-running back, has produced 180, 199, 199 and 205 yards in total offense in his last four games.

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Stenstrom marches: Deflected interceptions have beaten more than one NFL team this year, among them the San Francisco 49ers, who in the third quarter of what was then a 13-7 fight last week were still in sight of the NFC’s only powerhouse, the St. Louis Rams.

Down to their third quarterback, Steve Stenstrom, who replaced Jeff Garcia, who replaced Steve Young, the 49ers began the second half by parlaying a couple of first downs. More than that, they were still marching when on a second-down throw from Stenstrom, the ball was deflected to Ram linebacker Mike Jones, who returned it 44 yards for a touchdown. That was obviously too much for the 1999 49ers to overcome, as they proved in a 23-7 loss.

Scheduled against New Orleans twice in the next three weeks, the Rams continue to show that they can take sub-.500 teams in stride--which historically hasn’t been all that easy in the NFL. But they aren’t getting much practice against better players, the kind that might bother them in the playoffs and would surely trouble them in the Super Bowl, if they got that far.

Still, in San Francisco, the Rams again showed a priceless commodity that will help them in the postseason: two sets of tough, young, active linemen, one on offense, one on defense.

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Favre’s thumb, Green Bay better: Two theories have been advanced in Green Bay for the Packers’ unexpectedly slow start.

Their new coach, Ray Rhodes, and their old quarterback, Brett Favre, both have been blamed.

It seemed finally obvious last Sunday, though, that until now, it has been Favre’s bruised thumb holding them back.

If you don’t keep re-injuring a bad thumb, it keeps improving, and Favre can grip the ball again now, as anyone could see when he smiled his way through the Detroit game, coming from behind to win satisfactorily, 26-17.

The go-ahead play, after Detroit quarterback Gus Frerotte had opened a 17-12 halftime lead, was second-year Packer receiver Corey Bradford’s jumping, reaching, one-handed touchdown catch on a 17-yard play midway through the third quarter.

Bradford is a youngster who is still dropping the easy ones once in a while, but Favre is back in business now because, improbably, in a highlight-film move, his new target held this one. The instant-play reviewers agreed.

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Selected Short Subjects:

* Sports fans who censure New England passer Drew Bledsoe for throwing the game-losing interceptions Sunday could well consider this: Although Miami leads the AFC in cornerback talent with, among others, Sam Madison and Terrell Buckley, you’ve got to throw the ball sometimes and somewhere to beat any NFL team. What’s more, you’ve got to use the plays your coaches send in.

* The Patriots might rank highest in the AFC in great players. Their starters are, among others, strong-armed passer Bledsoe, shifty wide receivers Terry Glenn and Shawn Jefferson, tall tight end Ben Coates, an assortment of capable ballcarriers, safety Lawyer Milloy, defensive end McGinest and cornerbacks Ty Law and Steve Israel.

* There’s clearly some coaching confusion on occasion in the New England organization, whose offensive wasn’t ready to line up after an injury break on one play and had to waste another timeout. On third and 13 there, nothing wonderful was likely to happen, anyhow.