Defensive Stance Is Needed Off Field

By Sam Farmer

Jan. 30, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

HOUSTON — Eugene Robinson, the former NFL player who won the Bart Starr Award recognizing his high moral character, shouldn’t have to walk briskly through the lobby of the Carolina Panthers’ team hotel in hopes of avoiding reporters. But that’s the position he found himself in this week, when he happened to come face to face with his embarrassing Super Bowl legacy.

Five years have passed since Robinson was arrested in Miami on the eve of the Super Bowl for soliciting an undercover policewoman posing as a prostitute. Robinson, a starting safety for Atlanta, was bailed out in time to play in the Falcons’ 34-19 loss to the Denver Broncos. But his reputation was tarnished.

Now an analyst for the Panthers’ flagship radio station, he politely declined to speak with reporters from around the country who approached him Wednesday but eventually agreed to requests from a small group of writers who regularly cover the Panthers. He didn’t talk about the incident specifically but said he has done so with family members and some Carolina players.

“Unless your name is Gia Robinson, Brittany Robinson or Brandon Robinson, you’re not going to get too much out of me,” he said. “If you’re a football player and you ask me, that’s totally different because now it’s real. It’s not a story. We’re talking about life; that’s different. I’m much more ready to go ahead and talk. If they ask the question, I’m going to be honest, forthright and transparent as possible with that player, and I’ve done that.”

Robinson’s is a cautionary tale. He had a chance to perform on one of the world’s biggest stages -- and tumbled off. Before him came Stanley Wilson, the Cincinnati Bengal tailback who overdosed on drugs the night before the biggest game of his life and missed Super Bowl XXIII. The Bengals lost to the San Francisco 49ers, 20-16.

After Robinson, just a year ago, came the saga of Oakland Raider center Barret Robbins, who went AWOL the night before the game in San Diego and wound up staggering drunk down the streets of Tijuana. He too missed the Super Bowl, which the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 48-21, and wound up in treatment for alcoholism and bipolar disorder.

In one way or another, every New England and Carolina player has gotten the message that bad behavior before Sunday’s game could seriously affect the outcome of the Super Bowl.

“Every coach takes precautions,” Carolina Coach John Fox said. “I don’t know if you can ever guarantee anything will happen off the field. I’ve visited with my team about this. I think we have good team leadership, and they can monitor most of that. So I don’t think we’ll have any problems.”

Maybe not, but a lot of people said the Raiders had good team leadership last season. Their roster was loaded with such stable veterans as Tim Brown, Rod Woodson, Jerry Rice and Trace Armstrong.

And Raider officials knew of Robbins’ disorder -- he had gotten into trouble before -- and yet they failed to take the necessary steps to prevent disaster.

“Pressure brings out the worst and best in people,” Armstrong said. “Oftentimes, when people get in high-pressure situations, that’s when the cracks in their foundation show. And it’s when people’s greatness shows. So for every year for every bad story, you have one or two on the field where it’s the opposite of that.

“Every guy that plays this game is human. We all have the same human frailties that everybody has in society. Sometimes a special situation like this brings it out.”

The NFL does what it can to prepare players for the pressures surrounding the Super Bowl.

League security officials kick off the week with a presentation to both teams, warning players about unsavory and unstable people who might try to get close to them; gamblers who are looking for inside information that could affect the outcome, such as downplayed injuries; and scalpers looking to profit from the players’ ticket allotment.

Each player in the Super Bowl is given 15 tickets with a face value of $500 each. Those tickets could bring in thousands of dollars if they were illegally sold, and that’s a perk that would be enticing for a player on the bottom end of the pay scale.

“Young guys, I could see that maybe being a problem for them,” Carolina defensive tackle Mike Rucker said. “It’s a sticky situation. You’ve got people offering you a lot of money, but it’s not the right thing to do.”

Of course, there are pitfalls much more drastic than getting caught for unloading tickets.

For instance, players were reminded the laws for carrying firearms might be more lenient in Texas than they are in their home state.

“That’s one of the first things they told us ... road rage,” said Damien Woody, a New England offensive lineman. “Somebody might try to retaliate.”

Larry Brown, a former Dallas Cowboy, played on a team that was notorious for its avid partygoers. He said then-coach Jimmy Johnson didn’t try to bleed the fun out of Super Bowl week for his players but advised them to keep their wits about them.

“He used to tell us things like, ‘If you’re going to go out and drink, get a limo,’ ” recalled Brown, a cornerback who in the 1995 season was selected the Super Bowl’s most valuable player after intercepting two Pittsburgh passes.

Another thing Johnson did was take all the televisions out of the players’ hotel rooms and put a few sets in the area where the Cowboys ate. He felt it was better if the players congregated in a common area and therefore could watch over one another.

“If you were going to watch something, you watched collectively,” Brown said. “I didn’t think about it at the time, but it was brilliant.”

Sometimes, a player is simply going to find trouble no matter what a team does to prevent it.

“It’s not really something that a coach can do, it’s up to the individual guys themselves,” Panther guard Doug Brzezinski said. “When you assemble a good group of guys, they’re going to behave accordingly. That’s what Coach Fox has done. You can’t really be a baby sitter.

“If you have to be a baby sitter to guys when they’re in their late 20s and early 30s, it’s kind of too late for that.”