Pro Football / Bob Oates : Young Quarterbacks Making the Most of Their Moments in Spotlight

This is the Year of the New Quarterback in the National Football League:

--Young players have been starting for Indianapolis, Seattle, Washington and the Raiders.

--At Atlanta, Chris Miller, a 23-year-old Oregon product who played a couple of games as a rookie last year, has taken over and helped the formerly helpless Falcons win two in a row.

--Among other young veterans, Steve Young and Doug Flutie are moving in at San Francisco and New England, or at least up.

--And at Dallas, Kevin Sweeney, from Fresno State, finally got a chance Sunday and threw 3 touchdown passes, scaring the New York Giants in a late rally that fell short.

Asked what it all means, Sid Gillman, a former Ram coach, said: “Most of these guys are children of necessity. They’ve replaced people who weren’t measuring up or who were getting knocked off. We’ve had a lot of injuries.

“The most likely to make it as stars are Steve Young and the kid at Indianapolis, Chris Chandler. The Colts stole Chandler on the third round.”

Last year, when Chandler was playing for Don James at Washington, three other promising rookies were technically pros but were inactive. They are Steve Beuerlein of the Raiders, Mark Rypien of the Washington Redskins--now injured--and Kelly Stouffer of the Seattle Seahawks.

“The biggest change in quarterbacking is the coach calling the plays,” Gillman said. “None of these young guys could have started in the NFL . . . years ago, when they had to call their own plays.”

This year’s front-runner in the NFL quarterback derby, Troy Aikman of UCLA, led all the players on the field Saturday in a strange category for a T-formation passer--number of carries.

Aikman was credited with 17 carries, more than any running back in the UCLA-Oregon game, and more than some of the Big Eight’s wishbone quarterbacks this fall.

By contrast, quarterback Rodney Peete had 2 carries for USC Saturday.

When they do throw the ball, the Bruins have been using Aikman so consistently as a short-play passer that some observers are beginning to wonder if he can throw it long.

“He shows such a strong arm on short-to-intermediate passes that I’d be surprised if he can’t throw deep,” said Dick Steinberg, chief scout of the New England Patriots.

“But on his longer attempts, he doesn’t lay the ball out there the way you’d like to see it. Throwing bombs, he’s an unknown quantity right now.”

The pros measure power and accuracy of the bombs. Many passers have one but not the other. Nor does a single completed bomb make a long-ball passer. A quarterback can get lucky once or twice.

Aikman, in any case, isn’t getting much long-ball practice.

In the Oregon game, of course, not all of Aikman’s 17 carries were planned runs. Some were sacks, unplanned scrambles and the like. But on a day when UCLA made 17 first downs, Aikman passed for 6 and ran the ball himself for 7.

What’s strange about that is that he seems to have the talent to get all 17 first downs throwing.

The 1988 Raiders are beginning to disprove, in a big way, the old supposition that Heisman Trophy winners tend to lack NFL talent.

Three Heisman winners have become the heart of this team--Marcus Allen, Bo Jackson and Tim Brown, the rookie from Notre Dame.

The Allen-Jackson backfield wasn’t notably effective Sunday night--meaning that the club’s rebuilt offensive line was probably having some problems with the San Diego Chargers--but the third man in the trophy group, Brown, stood out, as a wide receiver and punt returner.

Once, on third and 18, Brown sprinted 20 yards, came back a yard and got the first down when Beuerlein found him there.

It was a poised performance by both rookies. Some NFL veterans cut that route off at 15 yards or so, putting their team in punt formation.

Brown has the speed to make such a play before the defense sacks his quarterback, and he has the toughness to do it in traffic.

Drafting him sixth was one of the club’s best moves since it drafted Allen 10th earlier in the decade.

The 5-5 Raiders figure to lose at San Francisco Sunday, and the AFC West’s other co-leaders, Denver and Seattle, also seem overmatched against Cleveland and Houston.

In the .500 division, there may not even be a .500 team when it’s all over next month.

Against New Orleans Sunday at Anaheim, the Rams will have to decide this week whether to run the ball, pass it or do a little of both.

In the old days, when their ground game proved as unproductive as it was the other day in Philadelphia, Coach John Robinson would spend the week afterward leaning on his blockers and runners.

There were uncounted repetitions of the simple but exquisite running plays that have always made Robinson’s teams feared.

But this year, the Rams have elected to try for a big-pass offense as well. And the time required to achieve that can only come out of the hours once devoted to practicing runs.

Any team seeking offensive balance has to give up something.

Some sports fans have branded Eric Dickerson a fumbler. Others say that Doug Flutie is too short at 5 feet 10 inches to throw passes over the heads of NFL linemen.

But at Philadelphia Sunday, the Eagles scored 10 decisive points against the Rams in the second half when Charles White fumbled, setting up a field goal, and when Jim Everett threw a deflected interception that was caught by the deflector, a defensive lineman named Jerome Brown. This set up a touchdown.

Everett stands 6-5, Brown stands 6-2. It was Brown’s first interception of the game--and Everett’s fourth.

After White had turned the ball over at the Ram 35, Everett turned it over at the Ram 21.

There’s a moral here, sure. Every NFL back fumbles. Every passer throws interceptions.

Quote Department:

Gene Stallings, Phoenix Cardinals coach, going into Sunday’s NFC East game of the week against the New York Giants: “If you had told me in training camp that we’d be 6-4 and playing the Giants for first place, I’d have taken it.”

Steve Young, San Francisco 49ers quarterback, on the Phoenix rally from down by 23-0 to up by 24-23: “Hey, 23-0 in the NFL is a pretty good lead. We’ll look back on this one and pull our hair out.”

Lindy Infante, Green Bay coach, blaming everyone but quarterback Don Majkowski for the Packers’ 3 consecutive losses after 2 surprising wins over New England and Minnesota: “The last couple of weeks, his surrounding cast hasn’t played well.”