They’ve Taken Up New Arms

Remember 1998?

In some ways, it doesn’t seem that long ago that John Elway was putting the finishing touches on his storied NFL career. Then again, if you’re browsing the list of the league’s current starting quarterbacks, those Elway days seem as old as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Just two weeks ago, the roster of starting quarterbacks included Michael Vick, Chris Redman, Chris Weinke, Quincy Carter, Joey Harrington, David Carr, Ray Lucas, Chad Pennington, Tommy Maddox, Marc Bulger, Drew Brees and Patrick Ramsey.

In a word: Who?

Consider this:

* The season is only halfway over, and 15 teams have turned to at least two quarterbacks as starters. Washington, Cincinnati, Carolina and St. Louis have rotated in at least three starters.

* Only four teams have starting quarterbacks who predate 1998 in their current roles: Jacksonville (Mark Brunell), Tennessee (Steve McNair), Green Bay (Brett Favre) and Arizona (Jake Plummer).

* Fourteen teams -- less than half the league -- are starting quarterbacks who have been on the job longer than 1 1/2 seasons.

The situation even baffles former San Francisco 49er Coach Bill Walsh, the league’s preeminent quarterback guru.

“I can’t explain why, but there needed to be a changing of the guard in recent years,” Walsh said. “We were all wondering where all the quarterbacks went, just a year ago. I kept saying that the colleges are developing far more quarterbacks than ever, because all the colleges and high schools are throwing the ball now.

“Virtually every school throws it 30 or 40 times a game, so you’re bound to develop good quarterbacks. There isn’t any way to avoid it.”

Walsh said several new starters in the current crop have caught his eye, particularly San Diego’s Brees, Detroit’s Harrington and Pennington of the New York Jets. But Atlanta’s Vick is in a class of his own, Walsh said.

“When he came out of college, I wasn’t sure he could really do it. I thought he was too inconsistent a passer,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if he was accurate enough, but it appears he is. He’s a sensation. You have to deal with him differently.”

The way Walsh sees it, good cornerbacks are in short supply, in part because “the glamour is out of the position” in high school.

“A lot of high school players who would make good corners would rather concentrate on playing running back,” he said. “And when they get to college, they don’t want to be tackling big fullbacks when they could be carrying the ball.”

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Personnel Approach

They were high school rivals at Loyola and Crespi, football teammates -- and roommates -- at UCLA, and now George Paton and Sean Howard will square off on national TV.

Well, sort of.

Paton, 33, is director of pro personnel for the Miami Dolphins, who play Monday night at Green Bay, where Howard, 33, is assistant director of pro personnel. They are two of the up-and-coming executives who could wind up as NFL general managers within a decade.

Both spend extensive time on the road scouting opponents and keeping tabs on every available player, from those cut by an NFL team to hopefuls from NFL Europe, Canadian Football League and the Arena Football League. They have both negotiated player contracts too, a process that allows Howard to make use of his University of Oregon law degree.

On a typical Sunday, Howard might be in New Orleans preparing a report on the Saints and making note of every nuance that doesn’t necessarily show up on tape. He’ll keep a detailed account of just about everything, whispering notes into his tape recorder.

“I’ll spend a lot of time just watching what’s happening on the sidelines,” said Howard, a former Bruin linebacker who began his NFL career as a scout with the 49ers in 1999. “I’m looking to see if a guy’s moving around gingerly on an ankle, or how a team runs personnel packages out on the field, or when do they break the huddle? How much time’s left on the clock when they’re snapping the ball? Tempo is huge.”

Each Monday, Paton turns in a 50-page report on the upcoming opponent, a study that includes a detailed breakdown on all 53 players. He comes up with a list of “game tips” and presents them before the entire team when the Dolphins start their week.

“An offensive lineman will ask about a defensive end: What are his favorite moves? What are his weaknesses?” said Rick Spielman, Miami’s vice president of football operations. “George has to know all aspects from a personnel standpoint. You can’t fake it with these guys. Once you lie, you’re going to lose your reputation.”

Spielman brought Paton from the Chicago Bears, where they worked together under then-Bear coach Dave Wannstedt, now coach of the Dolphins. This is Paton’s sixth season in the NFL. He played some low-profile professional football in Italy and Austria before working in computer sales, then as an assistant coach at Loyola.

Now, his workdays start at 5:30 a.m. and end around 10 p.m. He rarely sees a Dolphin game because he spends all his time during the season scouting the next week’s opponent. Always within reach are his tape recorder, laptop and an inch-thick spreadsheet with the particulars of every available player, in case the Dolphins need to fill a roster spot in a pinch. During the week, he’s an answer man ready to give any tips on the opposition.

“It’s just another opinion,” he said. “But if it helps one guy, it’s worth it.”

*

Don’t Look Now, Chucky

Coach Jon Gruden has a reputation as an offensive guru, but it’s hard to ignore Tampa Bay’s numbers through the first eight games. The Buccaneer offense has scored 11 touchdowns and 121 points. By this point last season, coordinator Clyde Christensen’s offense had 16 touchdowns and 145 points. A year earlier, under coordinator Les Steckel, the Buccaneer offense had 19 touchdowns and 175 points through eight games. And, in 1999, Mike Shula’s last season as coordinator, the offense had 12 touchdowns and 122 points.

That means this season’s offense is at a four-year low.

Still, the team is 6-2 and winning with defense -- a defense, mind you, that has scored five touchdowns.

It should be noted the Buccaneers have an ancient offensive line, one that can’t establish a ground attack and provides minimal protection for Tampa Bay’s quarterbacks, growing more black and blue by the minute.

*

Around the League

AFC EAST -- Four of the last five meetings between the Patriots and Bills have been decided in overtime, and the last eight games of the series have been decided by 10 points or fewer. In two games against New England last season, the Bills collected 12 sacks -- four by defensive end Aaron Schobel.... An awkward footnote on Cris Carter signing with the Dolphins: His new position coach learned the news by watching TV. “It came across the teletype on ESPN,” receivers coach Robert Ford said. “Dedric Ward tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if Cris was coming. At the time I didn’t know and I told [the receivers] no. But they looked at me like I was crazy. It hit like that. If there was a sour point about this, that probably was it.”

AFC NORTH -- Cal Ripken will always be Baltimore’s iron man, but Raven tackle Jonathan Ogden isn’t exactly scrap metal. The first-round pick out of UCLA has started every game (109) since the Ravens made their debut in 1996.... In the four games since Maddox took over as quarterback, the Steelers have scored at least 28 points. Maddox got the starting job after taking over for Kordell Stewart in the fourth quarter of a Sept. 29 game against Cleveland, and rallying the Steelers to a 15-12 overtime victory.

AFC SOUTH -- Tennessee has blown leads in three of four losses, has beaten only one team with a winning record and barely escaped a humiliating loss to Cincinnati. So, it stands in the ridiculously bad AFC South, where the 3-4 Titans are playing for first place this week against 4-3 Indianapolis. “This is not where we dreamed about being at the beginning of the season,” defensive tackle John Thornton said. “But we’ll take it the way it is now. Now we have a chance to get to .500 against a team in first place. It’s going to count as two games.” Now would you pay to see that?

AFC WEST -- Not only will Jerry Rice play a regular-season game against his former team for the first time, but he has a chance to reach some more milestones. He needs one touchdown to become the first player in NFL history to score 200, and he needs 10 yards to become the first player with 21,000 yards receiving.

NFC EAST -- No doubt Emmitt Smith’s all-time rushing record will be broken one day, but chances are it won’t be eclipsed by a running back who has spent his career with one team -- as Smith has, and Walter Payton did. It also could get much tougher to accomplish, and not just because players are getting bigger, stronger and faster. “The reason is you can’t afford to keep your players together for a long time,” said Floyd Reese, general manager of the Tennessee Titans. “In other words, a great back with a chance to break Emmitt’s rushing record won’t have a bunch of Pro Bowl offensive linemen and million-dollar tight ends and receivers together for a long time. That supporting cast won’t be kept together to help them keep having great seasons and be in position to break records.” ... Chad Hutchinson, who made his debut as a Cowboy starter last Sunday, is the only quarterback in league history who also has pitched in the major leagues. He spent four innings on the mound for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2001.

NFC NORTH -- Detroit defensive end Robert Porcher, who played with Barry Sanders from 1992 through ‘98, has an interesting theory about why Sanders walked away from football when he was so close to breaking Payton’s rushing record. It’s an enduring mystery. Sanders retired on the eve of training camp in 1999. He had 15,269 yards in 10 seasons and, barring injury, would have broken the record in another season or two. Porcher told the Detroit News he believes Sanders left the game so he would forever be linked to the rushing record. “Sooner or later, whether it’s 15 or 20 years from now, somebody will come along and break [the record that now belongs to Smith],” Porcher said. “Emmitt will just be the second-leading rusher. Then, when it’s broken again, he’ll just be third. He’ll go down.... But Barry will always be linked to whoever has the record. And I told him that. He just gave me a sly smile.”

NFC SOUTH -- Not only is Atlanta’s Vick the only quarterback since the 1970 merger to rush for at least 90 yards in consecutive games, but he’s the league’s only starting quarterback who has yet to throw an interception this season. He has thrown 135 passes without being picked off. Falcon cornerback Ray Buchanan on Vick: “There he goes, spraying on that invisible juice. Now you see him, now you don’t.”

NFC WEST -- San Francisco receiver Terrell Owens is boycotting the local media and hasn’t spoken to Bay Area reporters in two weeks. That must come as some relief to the 49ers this week, considering they’re playing the Raiders, and Owens has popped off about Tim Brown in the past. Seems Owens doesn’t appreciate Brown bashing his star-dancing, football-signing antics.... The 49er-Raider game brings to mind some memorable moments -- Raider assistant coach Charlie Sumner punching 49er assistant Sam Wyche after a 1981 exhibition game; Howie Long chasing 49er offensive line coach Bobb McKittrick down an L.A. Coliseum tunnel because McKittrick’s players were leg whipping; and 49er defensive lineman Charles Haley going berserk after a game, a tirade that ended only when Ronnie Lott -- then a Raider -- stopped by his old locker room to calm him.