49er Move Could Be Stroke of Genius

When new General Manager Bill Walsh brought bad-boy running back Lawrence Phillips to San Francisco, the club’s Bay Area detractors had a good time criticizing the 49ers.

It was absurd, they said, to hire a troublemaker who once pushed a woman downstairs and whose behavior otherwise had outraged even Jimmy Johnson, the Miami Dolphin coach who had seldom met a troublemaker he didn’t like.

In Arizona Monday night, there was another twist to the story. Phillips scored on a 68-yard run in the fourth quarter and probably saved the 49ers, whose offense had stood still most of the night.

The Arizona Cardinals, after giving away two touchdowns in the first half, seemed to be surging when Phillips’ run buried them, 24-10.

That prompts a question for this afternoon in San Francisco’s 3Com Park: If quarterback Steve Young is among the missing, can Phillips make up any part of such a severe loss for the 2-1 49ers against 3-0 Tennessee?

There also is a larger question: Facing a long season, can the 49ers somehow keep Phillips’ head screwed on straight?

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The reasoning: When Phillips became available last summer to any NFL general manager, Walsh’s reasoning seemed logical enough:

* The trigger was a surgeon’s report that because of injury, the 49ers were going to spend 1999 without Garrison Hearst, the running back who made them a complete team last year in a 12-4 season.

* It was then too late to draft or trade for an effective successor.

* No one else with the requisite ability was out there and Phillips, who, though his history of personal trouble is long and depressing, is a big, fast former No. 1 NFL draft choice with ball-carrying skills.

* It’s the American way--or at least the NFL way--to give a man like Phillips another chance.

* Walsh had nothing to lose but a little money, the comparatively small salary the 49ers are paying Phillips. If the deal didn’t work out, so what? As an offensive football team, the 49ers would be no worse off than they were before they signed him.

* If he could help them win even one game, good.

As of Week 4, he’s already been there, done that.

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An 0-3 classic: It could be said that today’s Jet-Bronco game at Denver is the best matchup of 0-3 powers of the 1990s.

True, both teams have lost last year’s quarterbacks, but they still have most of the players and coaches who hustled both ballclubs into the playoffs last winter.

This could be the real season-opener for the winner.

One possibility is that Rick Mirer may give Jet Coach Bill Parcells a quarterback.

In an even game last Sunday at the Meadowlands, one play made the difference when, unhappily for Mirer, as Washington won, 27-20, he made it: a fourth-quarter fumble.

That, however, was a strip play that could happen to anybody.

And until that instant, Mirer had fought Redskin quarterback Brad Johnson on even terms.

It has been a dozen years since Parcells guided the New York Giants to the Super Bowl by carefully nursing along a shaky young quarterback named Phil Simms.

In close games that year, Simms was rarely allowed to throw on third and 10, or even third and seven or eight. And eventually, Simms made Parcells a Super Bowl winner.

Though the future looks rougher for Mirer, Parcells may be starting him along the same road.

On passing downs against the Redskins, Parcells called for draw plays and sweeps away from the Redskin rush.

Still, in time, Mirer got his confidence up. And when Parcells sensed that in the second half, he let him throw, almost at will.

Mirer will improve if he keeps throwing with the force and precision he showed when the coaches unleashed him.

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Three quarterbacks? Besides passing skill, Mirer has the one quality a passer needs to succeed in the NFL today: escapability.

You need quick feet to evade the blitzers.

At Denver, the new passer, Brian Griese, with a better touch than Mirer’s, hasn’t yet perfected escapability.

While Griese works on that, the Broncos might be better off with backup Chris Miller as their starter.

Miller, a 10-year pro, would bring the experience Griese lacks and, possibly, the self-assurance that Bubby Brister apparently has lost.

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Here come the Rams? A football player trained in the overseas league still known to most sports fans as the World League--though the NFL has renamed it NFL Europe--has made the Rams suddenly respectable.

Or seemingly respectable.

He is Kurt Warner, a quarterback who, as the first European export to hit it big, carried undefeated St. Louis to a 35-7 upset of Atlanta last Sunday in the NFL’s surprise game of the week.

That made it a 2-0 start for the Rams and two consecutive victories for Warner, who threw three touchdown passes.

Warner, 28, began his strange career with four years in alternative leagues--three in Arena football and one with the Amsterdam Admirals in Europe--after graduating from Northern Iowa.

He was a late bloomer in college too, finally starting as a senior.

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Farmers now? The NFL has never had a baseball-type farm system.

Even though the league’s club owners have subsidized European football for several years, they have been loath to expose their most promising youngsters to injury over there.

Warner and the other NFL Europe players now on NFL rosters--49er running back Phillips among them--may change that mind-set.

If the European league could polish up a winning NFL passer and revive a bad-boy running back, America will doubtless ask for more.

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A Ram quarterback? Dick Vermeil has been luckier than most Ram coaches.

For one thing, with Warner, he may have a quarterback.

Seldom since the days of Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin 50 years ago could a Ram coach say that.

Second, Ram coaches used to be fired fast, win or lose.

Vermeil, by contrast, is still around, despite a two-year record of 9-23. In Los Angeles, that would never have gotten any Ram coach to training camp.

Vermeil, though, has a long-term contract and win or lose, current Ram ownership doesn’t fire and pay off coaches under contract.

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Co-threats: The Indianapolis Colts, off to a 2-1 start with sophomore quarterback Peyton Manning after his 3-13 year as a rookie, are the latest to learn about life in the modern NFL’s fast lane.

What they needed was a co-threat at running back, which rookie sensation Edgerrin James is providing.

The San Diego Chargers, with their many defensive resources, considered James the more ominous threat last Sunday so they closed him down. And Manning passed for 404 yards in a 27-19 win.

That’s the way it has to be done in pro football today.

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Short Subjects:

* At New York last Sunday, the officials showed the moxie to reverse a call on hometown receiver Keyshawn Johnson, who, on a close Jet play, was first ruled to have caught a ball he didn’t.

* The best single-season performance in the NFL’s first 80 years, by vote of the 36-man Hall of Fame board of selectors, was Dan Marino’s 48 touchdowns and 5,084 yards passing in 1984.

* Hubbard Alexander, who coaches Minnesota’s wide receivers, on Randy Moss: “I think you’ll notice that the second year is usually the one in which a football player most improves.”