Amid Odor, Tolliver Finds a Fresh Start

SAN DIEGO â€”  The fetid New York Jets are in town. They are 3-9 and possessed of the lowest-rated defense in the NFL

Place a clothespin on your nose.

The Jets’ opponent today at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium is the Chargers. The Chargers are 4-8. And their offense has scored four touchdowns in its last four games. Their last seven losses have been by an average of 4.43 points per game.

Place another clothespin over your nose.

And think about going to the beach, where the air is fresh and clean and where the staleness of a season gone bad for two bottom-tier NFL teams won’t offend your sensibilities.

Go to the beach instead of the ballpark, however, and you will miss Chapter Two in the apprenticeship of rookie Charger quarterback Billy Joe Tolliver.

Chapter One unfolded five weeks ago in Seattle, where Charger Coach Dan Henning gave Tolliver his first NFL start. It was against the Seahawks in the noisy Kingdome. And Tolliver was terrible.

“Getting into the regular season,” said Henning of Tolliver. “was a reality sandwich.”

In that game, Tolliver completed six of 17 passes for 41 yards. He threw one interception and was sacked twice. The Chargers lost, 10-7, even after Jim McMahon came off the bench in relief of Tolliver and moved the Chargers to a late 7-3 lead on a 14-yard touchdown pass to tight end Arthur Cox.

Since that time, McMahon has done little more than dodge blitzing linebackers, throw an occasional completion to a wonderful young wide receiver named Anthony Miller and report to the training room on Monday mornings with more aches and pains than the guy on the TV ads with rheumatoid arthritis.

So, with an eye to the future, Henning has decided to see what Tolliver has learned since the Seattle debacle. “I don’t think Billy was prepared for that first start,” Henning says. “I expect him to be better and make some more plays.”

For his part, Tolliver thought he was ready for the Seahawks. Even though he had just come off injured reserve, where he had languished with a broken left collar bone, he says he wasn’t nervous. He says maybe he should have been.

“I’m 0-1 as a starter,” Tolliver says. “I’d just like to get back to even so my dad can’t call me a flop again.”

Tolliver’s parents have stayed home in tiny Boyd, Tex. this time, although he figures they’ll pick up a broadcast of the game on a satellite dish somewhere. His parents, he says, are his worst critics.

“My family calls a spade a spade,” he says. “After the Seattle game, my mom told me she didn’t know whether she should walk out of the house and be recognized as my mother.”

The difference between McMahon and Tolliver? Experience, mobility and arm strength.

McMahon has been in the league since 1982, and that has taken its toll on his body. He has about half the arm strength of Tolliver. But he is still more mobile.

“I’ll stay in the pocket for the simple fact that I can’t run,” says the self-effacing Tolliver. “That’s been drilled into me for three years.”

Said Charger guard David Richards: “From an offensive lineman’s standpoint, one thing you can count on Billy Joe doing is staying right in the pocket whether someone’s open or not. There’s good and bad about that. The good is we know where he’ll be. The bad is if everybody is covered, he’s not the kind of guy who will scramble out.”

Neither is Jets’ quarterback Ken O’Brien. O’Brien leads the AFC in completions with 243. But among AFC quarterbacks, only Miami’s Dan Marino (18) has thrown more interceptions than O’Brien’s 15.

Worse for the Jets, nobody in the league has been sacked more times than O’Brien. Opposing pass rushers have caught him behind the line 42 times.

Which would appear to play right into the hands of a Charger pass rush that is led by outside linebacker Leslie O’Neal (10 1/2 sacks) and defensive end Lee Williams (10 sacks.)

In each of the last two weeks, O’Brien has been forced to leave the game because of hits that made him groggy. The Chargers rank sixth in the league with 34 sacks.

The good news for O’Brien is that his top wide receiver, Al Toon, has recovered from early-season injuries. Toon has only played in three full games and parts of three others, but he’s the Jets’ leading receiver, with 43 catches for 491 yards and two touchdowns.

Last Sunday, in the Jets’ 27-7 victory over Atlanta (their first victory at home this year), Toon burned Falcon rookie defensive back Deion “Prime Time” Sanders for eight receptions, 86 yards and one touchdown.

If Tolliver outplays O’Brien, the Chargers will probably win. And if that happens, Henning will probably stay with his rookie for the rest of the season.

And if that happens, McMahon’s bargaining power will drop like a rock in a pond. McMahon is in the last year of a contract that is paying him $800,000 this year.

No matter what happens, he and his agent, Steve Zucker, will demand more next year. If Tolliver matures in a hurry, McMahon won’t get close to $800,000 from the Chargers next year.

It is more likely the Chargers will turn McMahon loose on the Plan B free agency market, where he can cut a deal with another team.

But if Tolliver stinks up the place (remember to keep that clothespin handy) today, Henning will probably stay with McMahon the rest of the way to prevent any further damage to Tolliver’s confidence.

“The fans and the players should expect perfection,” Tolliver says.

The fans will settle for four touchdowns from the offense, something the Chargers haven’t done yet this year.

Charger Notes

Charger Coach Dan Henning, a former Jet assistant, on the Jet defense that ranks last in the league: “It’s a defense that has struggled statistically and has changed a great deal. They’re fishing around for a stabilizing type front.” Adds Charger tackle Joel Patten: “We don’t look where they’re ranked defensively.” Adds Charger guard David Richards: “Look where we’re ranked offensively (24th).” . . . The last time these two teams played each other was 1983. The Jets won 41-29. Only Don Macek, Billy Ray Smith and Gill Byrd remain from that Charger team.