This Doesn't Appear to Be a Passing Phase

By T.J. SIMERS

Oct. 4, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

PITTSBURGH —

There was a TV report this weekend that Houston is so confident of landing an expansion team at this week’s meetings in Atlanta that a city-wide celebration has been scheduled for Oct. 14.

Premature as that may be, this is no time to expand in a league where interest could shrink if the decline in competent quarterbacks continues.

Someone looking at Sunday’s final score here, for example, might have considered Jacksonville’s 17-3 win over the Steelers a defensive tussle. But these two teams, two of the best in the NFL by most standards, performed as if unaware they could use the forward pass.

Pittsburgh quarterback Kordell Stewart, like Arizona’s Jake Plummer featured in national TV commercials and representing the NFL’s electrifying future, hasn’t led his team to a touchdown in two games. In his last eight starts, “Slash” has been nothing but a parenthetical afterthought, meaningless to the Steelers’ cause, throwing for one touchdown with 11 interceptions.

The hometown fans were booing him on the team’s second drive, and by the time he surrendered the ball for back-to-back safeties in the fourth quarter, Three Rivers Stadium was nearly empty.

Stewart and Plummer, billed as two of the game’s most daring competitors, have combined to throw three touchdown passes this season--with 16 interceptions. And as badly as Stewart played, the guy on the other side of the field is supposed to lead his team to the Super Bowl, and yet Mark Brunell managed to complete only 10 of 25 passes for 85 yards with one touchdown and one interception. And he won.

Give Houston the expansion team and let’s see if they are still celebrating once they find who is going to play quarterback.

On the bright side, someone might point out, St. Louis quarterback Kurt Warner became the first quarterback in at least 50 years--back to the time when they kept track of such stats--to begin his career with three touchdown passes in each of his first three games. And Washington looks like the Don Coryell Chargers with Brad Johnson making like Dan Fouts. This could result in the perfect capper to this season: Warner taking on Johnson in a shootout for the NFC championship.

But remember when everyone could tell you what number the great quarterbacks were wearing, while doing their damage? How many know what number Warner or Johnson wear?

Five of the Johnny-come-latelys who started Sunday in the NFL played previously in the World League, including Warner, who also played in the Arena League. Two others who started Sunday were exiled earlier to the Canadian Football League. One other began his NFL career as a seventh-round draft pick. Throw in Rick Mirer, Billy Joe Hobert, Shane Matthews and Kent Graham and on a given Sunday it might be more advisable to run the ball and wait for the other team to turn it over.

Adding to this litany of misery--someone else’s idea of entertaining parity--is Trent Dilfer, Steve Beuerlein, Jim Harbaugh, Neil O’Donnell, Rich Gannon and Jeff Blake.

“Kordell’s our quarterback,” said Pittsburgh Coach Bill Cowher, and what else is he going to say after being asked if there might be a change at quarterback?

Mike Tomczak? The Steelers gave Stewart a signing bonus of $8.1 million before this season began, because they took a look around, and that was as good as they could have hoped for, even though Stewart was coming off a season in which he had 11 touchdown passes and 18 interceptions.

Go ahead, try and ask for a raise after a year like that.

The Steelers (2-2) have now lost four consecutive home games with Stewart in command--something never experienced in the 29-year history of Three Rivers Stadium. Stewart completed 15 of 32 passes for 126 yards against a Jacksonville defense that also sacked him four times.

“I think it’s obvious now we’re not a very good offensive team,” Cowher said.

Poor coaching added to Stewart’s woes. Confronted twice with fourth-and-one predicaments, instead of handing the ball to Jerome Bettis, the Steelers called for trick plays. The first resulted in Stewart being sacked for a four-yard loss, the second in Stewart throwing an incomplete pass.

Jacksonville, meanwhile, most everyone’s pick to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, has been exposed as a fraud. The Jaguars (3-1) barely beat Carolina, lost to Tennessee at home and left here fortunate to play a team lacking any kind of offensive punch.

After exploding for 41 points against the defenseless 49ers in the opener, the Jaguars have averaged 19 points a game in their last three games. Now there are reports that Coach Tom Coughlin and Brunell are at odds, because Coughlin has assumed play-calling responsibility.

Brunell’s tentative performance spoke eloquently to the friction between the two. Beyond a well-aimed seven-yard pass to Keenan McCardell for Jacksonville’s only touchdown at the start of the second quarter, Brunell looked nothing like the projected next Steve Young.

There just aren’t that many good quarterbacks in the game anymore. A week ago 16 of the 28 teams in competition failed to score at least 21 points. “You can sit there and say, hell, we should run it every snap,” Cowher said. “You can’t do that in this business.”

However, that may be where the game’s headed--something for the folks in Houston to consider when it’s time to buy a personal seat license.

More Bad News for the Broncos

Terrell Davis suffers a knee injury and two-time Super Bowl champion Denver falls to 0-4 after a 21-13 loss to the New York Jets. Page 9

THE REST

* Dallas 35, Arizona 7

* Baltimore 19, Atlanta 13, OT

* Jacksonville 17, Pittsburgh 3

* New England 19, Cleveland 7

* Chicago 14, New Orleans 10

* N.Y. Giants 16, Philadelphia 15

* St. Louis 38, Cincinnati 10

* Minnesota 21, Tampa Bay 14