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Sunday, December 01, 2002

By Ed Bouchette, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

It doesn't take much for a football player to be washed up, for fans, the news media and even coaches and team executives to pronounce one of their players finished. They lose patience with them quickly.

It's a football thing. It doesn't happen as often in baseball, where a player can have a bad year and be given every opportunity to prove it was an off season. Or, in Kevin Young's case, be given many years.

Baseball, though, has guaranteed contracts that force teams to stick with an underperformer. They also play the game every day, so a few bad performances can be erased before the week's over.

In football, a few bad performances can get you run out of town.

Kordell Stewart and Jerome Bettis are two examples with the Steelers, but they are everywhere, and it has nothing to do with age or one's status in the game. Quarterback Aaron Brooks of the Saints and the Cowboys' Emmitt Smith have seen it happen recently.

Brooks, 26, is one of the game's outstanding young quarterbacks. He has thrown 21 touchdown passes, more than anyone in the NFC. He can run better than most quarterbacks and has 221 yards rushing. But he's thrown 13 interceptions and, when he threw one at home last week during a loss to the Browns, Saints fans let him have it.

"This was not Aaron's best game, there's no denying that," said Pittsburgh native Mike McCarthy, the Saints' offensive coordinator.

Brooks threw for a season-high 318 yards, but he lost a fumble and threw three interceptions. Fans booed him loud and long in the sold-out Superdome. He has been ripped on talk radio and the Internet for many things, including his tendency for smiling on the sidelines during losses.

"It's part of the game," Brooks said. "I don't think people [know] what it takes to become a complete quarterback in this league."

Brooks is in a slump. He threw 16 touchdowns and seven interceptions in the Saints' 6-1 start. In the past four games, he has five touchdown passes and six interceptions.

"It's not all Aaron's fault," Coach Jim Haslett said. "There is enough blame to go around for everybody in that room, including players and coaches."

In Dallas, they've been trying to convince Smith it's time to retire, that he's lost it at age 33. Many believe the Cowboys will not have him back next season now that he's broken Walter Payton's all-time rushing record.

But after Smith's 144-yard day against the Redskins Thursday, he has 834 yards rushing, which ranks sixth in the NFC entering the games today. He's averaging 4.2 yards a carry and doing it behind a line that's not up to Dallas standards and on a team that has the third-worst passing offense in the NFL.

Yet, even his old friend Troy Aikman has urged the Cowboys to move on without him.

"If you are a football team that's struggling like the Cowboys are, then, at some point, you've got to make a youth movement," Aikman said. "I think it's important that guys realize it is a business."

Sure is, and, if it weren't for Smith and his pursuit of Payton's record, who would have wanted to watch the pathetic Cowboys through the first half of the season? If it weren't for him, they would not have beaten the Redskins for a 10th consecutive time.

Yet Smith has to listen to guys like Aikman tell him when he should quit?

"At some point, everyone becomes expendable," Aikman said.

Maybe Smith hasn't reached that point. They were saying the same thing about Bettis before last season, then he was leading the NFL in rushing when he was injured in the 11th game of the season. Naturally, he was pronounced a step slower this year after he turned 30 before he even got to training camp, and, when he missed four starts with a knee injury, it was evidence that he was washed up.

But Bettis did not look washed up last week when he ran for 79 yards and two touchdowns, one for 24 yards. Was Corey Dillon washed up because he was held to 60 yards by the Steelers on 19 carries?

Said Bettis, "I can understand raising questions because my play is suffering -- 'Hey, he doesn't look like he's sharp, he's not hitting the hole, he's not doing this' -- OK, I can understand that. But to raise questions because I'm injured?"

Then there's Stewart. He was his team's MVP last season, made the Pro Bowl, helped the Steelers to a 13-3 record with his best season. Three games into this season, he was benched. That's life in the big leagues.