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Sunday, August 19, 2001

Are the days of Johnny Unitas, Dan Marino, Troy Aikman and Peyton Manning coming to an end?

The pocket quarterback is not extinct in the NFL, but it's an endangered species. He has largely been replaced by the mobile quarterback, the style of play exhibited by Donovan McNabb, Steve McNair, Daunte Culpepper, Michael Vick and, yes, Kordell Stewart.

One by one, the great pocket passers are disappearing. Aikman retired after last season, Marino the year before, Boomer Esiason after the 1997 season and Jim Kelly after the '96 season.

The successful pocket passers are few, but they are some of the best in the game -- Manning with the Colts and Kurt Warner with the Rams the most notable. Both quarterbacks in last year's Super Bowl were drop-back types, the Giants' Kerry Collins and Baltimore's Trent Dilfer.

Dilfer's difficulty finding a job as a starter when he became a free agent, though, underlines the problem.

"The league's taking on a little different mentality now," Warner said. "I'm one of the few drop-back quarterbacks left. But I like the opportunity to carry the torch. It's neat for guys like me and Peyton to have the opportunity to still succeed doing what I feel quarterbacking is all about -- dropping back and getting the ball to people in positions for them to make plays."

Warner believes the old ways are the best.

"You don't win games as a quarterback running the football," he said. "That's the bottom line. You might make a nice play here and there, but to win a game at this level you have to win with your mind and with your arm. To me, that's what it's all about.

"I like to continue proving that to people. The great ones are the ones who can win throwing the ball -- not guys who run 4.3 40-yard dashes. Not that they can't win, but ultimately it's going to come down to their arm and their mind as opposed to their legs."

Costly firing

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie might have cost himself $5 million when he fired Tom Modrak as his director of football operations.

That's the minimum estimate that it cost the Eagles when Monday's game was canceled against Baltimore because of an unplayable field. The Eagles had to refund all the ticket money plus their cut of concessions and advertising revenue lost from the non-broadcast of the game. The league also may fine the Eagles.

It all might not have happened had Modrak been on the scene.

The Eagles did not discover the poor playing conditions until two hours before game time when the players walked out on the Veterans Stadium turf. The artificial turf that was used to replace the cutouts for the baseball configuration were so soft and squishy that Ravens Coach Brian Billick and his players refused to play because of safety concerns.

At first, Eagles President Joe Banner declared his team was not culpable for what happened because the city controls the Vet. But this was the first time the Eagles were to play on the new NeXturf that was installed before the baseball season and no one from the Eagles bothered to check it out until two hours before kickoff?

Banner is more of a bean counter than a football man. He won a political war with Modrak, regarded as one of the league's better scouts and personnel men. Ironically, Lurie and Modrak had a loud shouting match two years ago when Modrak complained about the Eagles' poor training facilities. Modrak played college football at IUP and coached in college before he became a pro scout. Surely, he would have checked out the playing surface a lot sooner.

Had someone from the Eagles done so, the game could have proceeded without the inserts. Teams have played on dirt infields for years and still do in Miami until after the baseball season. But by the time it was discovered, it was too late to repair the problem and the game was canceled.

Banner finally admitted as much.

"Maybe in hindsight we could have been more assertive," he said. "Maybe we should have been screaming."

Agent cashes in

Agent Eric Metz, who represents Alex Van Pelt, has picked up a couple of big victories of his own this summer.

First, an arbitrator awarded him about half a million dollars in agent's fees he should have received from Joey Galloway when that receiver signed as a free agent with the Dallas Cowboys in 2000.

Metz, a Monroeville native and Gateway High School graduate, negotiated Galloway's contract with the Cowboys, but the night before he signed it, Galloway hired Leigh Steinberg as his agent.

He then signed virtually the same contract that Metz had negotiated.

"The fact it took 18 months to finally 'win' the award is a serious flaw in the union regulations," Metz said.

Also, Joe Mendez, a longtime front-office man with the Washington Redskins, joined Metz's firm in Phoenix and will help him scout for players.

Metz's firm is one of just five in the football business that has represented more than three players in the top half of the first round since 1995. He is one of seven that have represented more than eight first-round players since free agency came into being in the NFL in 1993.

A fitting performance

Donovan McNabb, at least, kept his sense of humor, when asked about the night's work:

"Well, I thought we played a flawless game. We looked extremely good out there. The guys' uniforms fit well. I think that's something positive we can take out of it."

A lost art

Daddies, send your children to long-snapping camp.

Trey Junkin, 40, is in his 19th training camp, played in 265 games and is eighth on the NFL's all-time longevity list.

All because he knows how to snap a football back to the punter or kick-holder.

Junkin, who snaps for his fifth NFL team, the Arizona Cardinals, began his career during Ronald Reagan's first term as president.

"It's kind of a lost art," Junkin said. "They're not teaching it. The NCAA is really helping me out by not letting them hit the long snapper. As soon as I feel like I'm hurting a team, enough's enough."

In the NFL, there is no rule to protect the long snapper.

Junkin learned the art when he was 9 and his coach told him he had to do it if he wanted to play. His first snapee was his mother.

"I was lucky," Junkin said. "My mom could catch. We worked on it every single day."

In order to keep plying his trade, Junkin must play for the veteran minimum salary of $477,000, which is still considered a luxury by many teams to pay someone who does nothing more than snap for punts and place-kicks.

Remember the Chargers

For those who get carried away by wins and losses in the exhibition season, this reminder:

San Diego went 4-0 last preseason, 1-15 last regular season.

"I think they got a little relaxed thinking things were all right," said former Chargers cornerback DeRon Jenkins, now with Tennessee. "Then we had a long year. A real long year."

Quick slants

Taking a page out of the Browns-Steelers book, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair has requested that his team's first regular-season home game in 2002 come against the Dallas Cowboys.

One way to beat the heat in the old days? "You would suck your sweatbands, man, to keep your mouth moist. It was brutal. But, amazingly, nobody died," said Sylvester Croom, a Packers assistant coach, about his high school playing days in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

No Tampa Bay Buccaneer has ever returned a kickoff for a touchdown in a regular-season game.

It took five years, but Cardinals GM Bob Ferguson said the team finally has wiggled its way out of the salary cap jam Buddy Ryan got it into during his two years as coach.

Quarterback Jon Kitna on his new environment with the Bengals: "The hardest thing for us right now is when one thing goes bad in practice, it's hard for us to recover because they're so used to bad things happening."

Dom Capers found at least one place where he could watch practice. The new Texans coach and his offensive coordinator, Chris Palmer, attended Bengals practices last week. Capers and Bengals Coach Dick LeBeau were on the same staff with the Steelers.