TOP BILLING

Coach Wade Phillips of the Buffalo Bills decided that Doug Flutie, who had won 10 games and put his team into the playoffs, does not give his team as good a chance to get to the Super Bowl as Rob Johnson, who didn’t make it to a Rose Bowl and went 0-5-1 against Notre Dame and UCLA while playing for USC.

His dad’s name is Bum, but by this afternoon Phillips might be called worse.

It’s in Johnson’s hands now, and although Johnson has done more surfing than playing quarterback since joining the NFL in 1995, Phillips is banking on the big-play potential yet to be fully realized by the former Trojan.

The Bills have the No. 1 defense in the league but rank 22nd in passing and 17th in scoring, and to advance to the Super Bowl they probably will have to beat the Tennessee Titans (13-3), Jacksonville Jaguars (14-2) and Indianapolis Colts (13-3) on the road.

That’s a tall order for someone as short as Flutie.

“Is it a move open to criticism? Sure,” said John Butler, the Bills’ general manager. “But I’m telling you, talent just oozes out of this guy, and Wade has seen that in practice every day.”

And so now, like some modern-day Steve Young lost in Tampa Bay and then stuck for five years behind Joe Montana in San Francisco, Johnson gets the chance to emerge from the shadows cast by Mark Brunell and Flutie and never look back.

If only he could not look back.

“It’s been tough sitting, but then I’ve been through some tough times,” Johnson said, the bad memories apparently still fresh because of the shortage of opportunities to manufacture new ones. “I threw that interception from the one- or two-yard line with the Rose Bowl on the line, and that hurt.

“The fans were all upset, and I understand that totally, but that hurt. That one play right there tarnished my career at USC, and if I can deal with that, shoot, this stuff is a piece of cake.”

He had thrown more than 400 passes with distinction for USC, but UCLA went to the Rose Bowl with a 27-21 victory instead of USC because on third and goal from the two, Johnson never saw Bruin safety Marvin Goodwin while taking aim at Trojan tight end Tyler Cashman.

In later dispatches recounting that disappointing time, USC guard Jeremy Hogue said he sat alone with Johnson, and Johnson was disconsolate.

“It was one of those situations where nothing you could say to him would help,” Hogue was quoted as saying in a newspaper article. “And it’s because he’s a winner. He told me he’d rather play a horrible game and win than have great stats and lose. He said he’d give back anything he’s ever done in football to have that play back.”

Although Johnson left USC having rewritten the record books and led the team to a Cotton Bowl victory, business remained unfinished. There had been another missed opportunity to defeat UCLA, a two-point play gone awry. An interception curtailed a comeback against Notre Dame, and with the best chance later in his career to defeat the Irish, USC settled for a 17-17 tie.

It was only the beginning of a series of setbacks, each in its own right emotionally taxing, heightening the urgency now to perform well every time there is another opportunity.

With mistaken rumors circulating that his carefree attitude was an indication that he wasn’t a hard worker, 98 players were selected ahead of him in the NFL draft. The first day of the draft passed before Johnson heard his name called, the first player selected in the fourth round. Jacksonville made him the seventh quarterback selected in the draft--an embarrassing fall in the ranks complicated by the fact that the Jaguars had traded for Brunell a day earlier and made him their starter.

Johnson played behind Brunell, throwing seven passes his first year, and then Brunell became the only starter in the league the next season not to sit out a play. That made Johnson the only No. 2 quarterback not to play a down.

By now Johnson had lost 20 pounds from his USC playing days and had become a workout enthusiast, ready to start when Brunell went down because of a serious knee injury before the start of the ’97 season. And then, in a performance that would eventually earn him almost a $25-million raise, Johnson made his first NFL start, and despite being forced from the game twice because of an ankle injury, returned to defeat the Baltimore Ravens, 28-27.

That was his only start in 1997, but after the season Buffalo traded a No. 1 and No. 4 pick to Jacksonville for Johnson, tore up his $400,000 contract and gave him a five-year, $25-million deal to become their starter.

On a lark, they also signed Flutie with the understanding that Buffalo’s future rested on Johnson’s arm.

But Buffalo started 0-3 with Johnson, and standing rigid in the pocket he took a pounding. He survived two concussions, beat the San Francisco 49ers, 26-21, and then on the third play of his fifth start, was sidelined because of a rib injury.

The Flutie era began and continued even after Johnson recovered. Flutie became so popular, a cereal was named after him: Flutie Flakes.

He turned a 1-3 start into a 9-3 finish and a berth in the playoffs, the Flutie love fest prompting sports-talk callers in Buffalo to wonder if the organization had been duped into making a Scott Mitchell-like acquisition in Johnson based on his one start with Jacksonville.

But Johnson appeared unfazed, the Southern California carefree attitude now coming in handy, although “inside,” Johnson acknowledged, “I felt it all.”

Buffalo tossed him a token start in the final regular-season game against the New Orleans Saints last season and Buffalo scored a season-high 45 points in a victory. But then the playoffs started, Flutie resuming his position as offensive leader--not a murmur of discontent from Johnson--and the Bills went down to Miami and lost, 24-17, to the Dolphins.

Flutie, 37, earned a trip to the Pro Bowl and was named the NFL’s comeback player of the year, which meant even though the players would be listed as co-starters when training camp opened last summer, there would be no replacing America’s favorite Beanie Baby quarterback.

Buffalo opened 4-1, and then Flutie struggled in losses to the Oakland Raiders and Seattle Seahawks. The team’s No. 1 defense compensated for his lagging play, and after 15 games the Bills were in the playoffs with a 10-5 record.

Once again Johnson, 26, was given the start in a meaningless season finale, Flutie resting for the playoffs. Johnson led his team to a 31-6 victory over the Colts, completing 24 of 32 passes for 287 yards and two touchdowns.

Criticized earlier for holding the ball too long and absorbing too many sacks, he now looked polished, releasing the ball in rhythm and using his arm to go deep, something Flutie had been unable to do.

Phillips, who had bristled a day earlier when asked if there was any chance he might turn to Johnson to start the playoffs, made the stunning announcement Monday that Johnson would start against Tennessee.

Years earlier, a coach had thrown the Johnson family into a Flutie-like tailspin with the surprise announcement that Jim Bonds would start for UCLA at quarterback ahead of Bret, Rob’s older brother. Bret, who had started the previous season for the Bruins, withdrew from school in a lather and transferred to Michigan State.

“It’s kind of like, you don’t trust coaches anymore,” Rob Johnson said a few years ago after turning away from UCLA to go to USC. “You’ve grown up with a coach [Bob Johnson coached both of his sons at El Toro High], and you respect coaching, but then something like that happens.”

But now Rob Johnson, who wears No. 11 in his brother’s honor, has a chance to benefit from a coach’s decision, which has prompted hundreds of unhappy fans to contact the Bills wondering how a team could be so disloyal.

“The thing that frustrates me more than anything is I’ve been waiting 10 years for this opportunity,” Flutie said. “We’ve got a great football team. We’ve got the best defense in the league. We’ve got a real chance.”

This is business, more than sport, and although that makes a mockery of all that coaching tripe about team chemistry, loyalty and “dancing with the one that brung you,” Phillips has already earned his pay. Hired to determine the best course to win, he believes the No. 1 defense in the league needs a boost from the offense to survive the torturous road ahead.

The Bills now belong to Johnson, and they are his for the taking for some time if he can play well in the big game. His arm makes a weapon of wide receiver Eric Moulds and throws open the running game because of the need to defend against the deep pass.

But he also remains a stand-still target for an aggressive Titan pass rush, which features rookie sensation Jevon Kearse. And both of the Bills’ starting tackles are hurt, which makes the strategy to start an immobile quarterback as opposed to a scrambling Flutie a second-guesser’s delight. Although Johnson has played only sparingly, he has suffered three concussions in the last two years because of that immobility.

Flutie could still be needed, but now it’s Johnson’s chance to deliver the highlights. He has the opportunity to begin building a resume of accomplishment, the dogged disappointments of the past no more a weight to tow, but rather a badge of honor in survival.

“It’s all about opportunity,” he said. “And I’m ready.”

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How They Compare

Rob Johnson started Buffalo’s last game, and was named the starter for the playoffs after Doug Flutie started 15 games:

ROB JOHNSON

* Vital Statistics: Born--March 18, 1973; Height--6-4; Weight--212 pounds; College--USC; NFL experience--five years.

* 1999 Statistics: Games--2; Games started--1; Record as starter--1-0;. Attempts--34; Completions--25; Yards--298; Completion percentage--73.5; Touchdowns--2; Interceptions--0; Quarterback rating--119.5.

DOUG FLUTIE

* Vital Statistics: Born--Oct. 23, 1962; Height--5-7; Weight--178 pounds; College--Boston College; NFL experience--six years.

* 1999 Statistics: Games--15; Games started--15; Record as starter--10-5; Attempts--478; Completions--264; Yards--3,171; Completion percentage--55.2; Touchdowns--19; Interceptions--16; Quarterback rating--75.1.

NFL Playoffs

Today

Buffalo at Tennessee

9:30 a.m., Channel 7

*

Detroit at Washington

1 p.m., Channel 7

*

Sunday

Dallas at Minnesota

9:30 a.m., Channel 11

*

Miami at Seattle

1 p.m., Channel 2