NFL Will Do What Heisman Won’t

So many pro clubs need what USC quarterback Carson Palmer has shown this season -- the talent to dominate as a passer -- that he’s certain to be a first-round choice in the NFL draft this spring. But can the same be said for Palmer’s chance to win the Heisman Trophy?

That’s doubtful, for, clearly, Plaschke’s Law is more than ever applicable in 2002. On a national news program last week, for example, the ABC network reflected the Eastern bias that Bill Plaschke recently wrote about in The Times.

Reviewing a big football Saturday, ABC touted an Eastern star for the Heisman, one Larry Johnson of Penn State, a running back who’d had a four-touchdown day.

On the same New York broadcast, the ABC announcers, the two who are best known for their Saturday halftime reports, mentioned (in passing) Palmer’s four touchdown passes that day. But the player both announcers promoted for Heisman recognition wasn’t Palmer but the Penn State guy. After Penn State beat Michigan State. To most Easterners, the West is another planet.

Who’s Pennington?

In the West, sports fans are more likely to look at the whole country. For one thing, they know who Chad Pennington is. They’ve had him in their e-mail sights since Pennington came out of nowhere in early November to rescue the New York Jets as Vinny Testaverde’s replacement at quarterback.

And they know he’ll be in Oakland Monday night to duel Raider quarterback Rich Gannon. Old vs. new. Their teams have both come off losing streaks to launch November winning streaks.

At 37, Gannon, like George Blanda before him, is now throwing and winning with his head, and doing it sensationally.

At 26, Pennington seems to be proving, also sensationally, that the Jets guessed right when they named him on the first round in the 2000 draft. He’s also proving that you can rise to stardom in New York from Marshall, which plays in the Mid-American Conference.

More to Come

This year, the Mid-American is grooming two or three more promising quarterbacks, among them Byron Leftwich of Marshall and Ben Roethlisberger of Miami (Ohio).

What’s happening around the country is that high school coaches are producing more good quarterbacks than the I-A conferences can handle.

What’s happening in New York is that Pennington is teaming with runner Curtis Martin to give the Jets the two-way threat you need to win pro games.

Trouble is, the Raiders have that too.

Schedule Luck

Of all the Super Bowl contenders, the Jets have the toughest remaining schedule. Their 31-13 conquest of Buffalo in Week 12 was their fourth consecutive in a run that included a win over Miami; but even if Pennington and Martin stayed hot, they could spend the rest of the season as underdogs with only one possible breather.

And that’s on the road, against the Chicago Bears.

Otherwise for the Jets, it’s Oakland, Denver, New England and Green Bay. Thus, in this season of general parity, the key question is getting to be, “Whom do you play when?”

The San Diego Chargers, to name one unlucky team, ran into Miami quarterback Ray Lucas last Sunday after Lucas, a relief pitcher for injured Jay Fiedler, had recovered from a series of ragged starts. At his most ragged low point, he couldn’t even stand to look at the tapes of himself.

Abruptly, with the Chargers in town, Lucas was a 194-yard passer, which made Ricky Williams a 143-yard rusher and San Diego a 30-3 loser.

Warner or Bulger?

The Redskin game also settled the long-term quarterback question for the Rams:

In the salary-cap era, which of their two multimillion-dollar passers should they keep next year, Kurt Warner or Marc Bulger? The answer now, surely, is, “Not Warner.”

As great as Warner is -- coming back from injury Sunday, he completed his first 15 passes -- Bulger is similarly accurate as a passer and more mobile.

That is the difference; and in these times of mobile necessity for NFL passers, it’s a big one. Though Bulger isn’t a sprinter, either, he moves well in a collapsing pocket. Whereas Warner doesn’t.

Spurrier Learning

The luck of the schedule -- whom do you play when? -- also punished the Rams last week.

They bumped into the Washington Redskins on the very day that Steve Spurrier, Washington’s famous new passing coach, finally learned that you also have to run the ball to win NFL games. Spurrier overdid it, running Stephen Davis 31 times (while calling only 23 passes), but that’s another story.

The Week 12 story is that St. Louis figured Spurrier to pass the ball as usual while he was running it to win, 20-17, ending the Rams’ five-game winning streak, and smashing their playoff hopes.

One-Play Disaster

As the Rams’ final play Sunday illustrated, Warner, with 17 seconds left, can be sacked on an opponent’s six-yard line when his team is losing by only three points with the tying field goal imminent.

The call by Ram Coach Mike Martz was, contrary to his own statement, a good one. To rely on an overtime coin toss would have been chancy against the combination of Davis and Spurrier’s wise old quarterback, Danny Wuerffel, who can’t throw much, but who does throw straight.

In such a crisis -- one play, at the six-yard line, for the ballgame -- Martz had every reason to expect a two-time NFL MVP to take one look at his A receiver in the end zone, whoever that was, and throw him the ball or throw it away, leaving time a-plenty for a kick.

Instead, like a rookie hoping to make something happen, he waited until the game was lost.

The next crisis for Martz is whether to use Bulger, either as starter or in relief, before his bad finger completely heals. The danger is that Bulger will be permanently damaged if he plays prematurely. A ligament injury can do that.

Best Players Gone

For the Rams, this is a season that apparently can’t be saved. Although next year could be wonderful for Martz and Bulger, both, they have been done in this season by too many serious injuries.

The Rams went into Washington last week minus their three best players -- quarterback Bulger, running back Marshall Faulk and cornerback Aeneas Williams -- and they will probably be without all three again in Philadelphia today.

Although, as the coaches say, all teams have injuries, these are three particularly hard losses for Martz. On his offense, Faulk is the heart and soul. On the defense, Williams is the heart and soul. And Bulger’s injury denied the Rams any thought of a relief role Sunday for the passer who, after their 0-5 start, had led them back to 5-5.

The Rams did have their MVP quarterback in Washington; but after his long injury layoff, Warner couldn’t have been as sharp as he wanted to be.

In the Ram game, the Eagles will again be without their great player, quarterback Donovan McNabb, who was a candidate for NFL MVP when he was injured two weeks ago. The Eagles, though, routed San Francisco on Monday night with surprisingly effective quarterback replacements.

And best of all, for them, they don’t have much to beat in the NFC East. In a 16-14 game last week, the New York Giants (Philadelphia’s foremost rival) couldn’t even get past the expansion Houston Texans.

Wanted: Vick on TV

For Michael Vick, the Atlanta quarterback who is showing the football world that there’s a new way to play the NFL game, the next challenge looms today in Minneapolis. Though the Vikings can’t win for losing on the road, they’re tough indoors at home, where, when Vick has the ball, the noise level will be more than he dreamed of.

Speaking as a jury of one, I’ve never seen a football player who could do what Vick does routinely -- throw long and straight if that’s open or sprint like a running back if a run is preferable.

Even so, escaping is probably Vick’s long suit. His option to escape a hit of any kind will be there forever, once he learns to take it -- once he learns to use his quickness to dart out of bounds on a running play, or to instantly sprint out of danger when the pocket breaks down.

If you haven’t seen him, what Vick does is hard to imagine. So, come on, Fox. You can then judge for yourself that nobody else can do -- has ever been able to do -- what he does.

Today’s Guesses

* Denver to win by three points at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. It’s not true that the Chargers are slumping. This is just another in a series of hard-to-win games.

* St. Louis by three at old Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. The Eagles were playing erratically even before they lost McNabb.

* San Francisco by two over Seattle at Candlestick’s 3Com Park. Does this make three losers for me with two to go? Is quarterback Matt Hasselbeck the Seattle answer after all?

* Tampa Bay by five over New Orleans at the Louisiana Superdome. The Saints have the talent to take me to four for four.

* Monday night: Oakland by a touchdown over the New York Jets at Network Associates Coliseum. It won’t be easy for Jet quarterback Pennington to pass this test.