No Passing Marks for Brady Targets

One thing about New England quarterback Tom Brady that makes him a candidate for best active quarterback is that he is successful without a cast of great pass receivers.

As the Chicago Bears will see today, the only first-class receiver in the Patriot lineup, Troy Brown, moves around on an injured leg.

The Patriots’ other receivers are too slow, too inexperienced, or too deficient in NFL talent.

Yet last week, Brady passed for 265 yards, completing 22 of 26, and beating former teammate Drew Bledsoe in Buffalo, 38-7.

On the game’s decisive plays, when none of Brady’s wide receivers could get open, he threw the ball to some of his backs instead, or to tight ends. In the circumstances, it was the game of the year for a passer in this league.

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Belichick Throws

For the Patriot coach, Bill Belichick, the Buffalo game was a coaching masterpiece. He won because he kept Brady at it. He kept him throwing because of his faith that Brady could find somebody open.

Belichick could see that New England’s wide receivers were mired in the Buffalo defense. But last year, Belichick had handpicked Brady over Bledsoe, and he knows he was right about that.

Belichick also won because he knows defensive football so well.

In a must-win game, this is the guy you want in charge of your defense.

The Patriots should have enough pass-receiving class to handle the Bears today -- but it may not be enough to get them another Super Bowl title. Their problems were best illustrated last week whenever flanker Brown was running a crossing pattern.

Typically, when throwing to Brown on such a play, Brady threw too far in front of him. He remembered Brown’s preinjury speed and couldn’t adjust. Few passers have ever been able to adjust in such a predicament. The right timing with a good receiver is hard enough to get in the first place.

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Bills’ Receivers Better

The difference in class between New England’s receivers and Buffalo’s resembles the difference between college and pro ball. On the Buffalo team, Bledsoe can choose between wide receivers who have been the two most productive in the league for most of the last two months.

They are split end Eric Moulds, who compares with any receiver in football except San Francisco’s Terrell Owens, and flanker Peerless Price.

Moreover, fullback Larry Centers, who plays a key role in Buffalo’s pass-pattern network, compares with any pass-catching fullback in football.

A week ago, in other words, Bledsoe had a large advantage over Brady in downfield help.

Despite Bledsoe’s excellence as a passer, his fast start in Buffalo this season has been in large part attributable to the excellence he found there in the receiving positions -- to his obvious surprise -- following the mediocrity he had put up with in New England while losing his job to Brady.

Football fans and critics measuring one passer against another these days are prone to overlook the differences in supporting casts that quarterbacks all have.

Thus, one of hall-of-famer Joe Montana’s assets was wide receiver Jerry Rice, who at 40 is still better than most of his peers.

One of quarterback Peyton Manning’s assets is the smooth Indianapolis wide receiver, Marvin Harrison. And so on.

Brady had a guy like that last year, Troy Brown, but he doesn’t really have him now. In the passer ratings, Brady rates extra points because of whom he has to throw to.

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Support Counts

In running back comparisons as well, football’s fans and critics might well give more weight to the differences in supporting casts.

In San Francisco, for example, the alternating featured backs, Garrison Hearst and Kevan Barlow, good as they are, benefit hugely from the excellence of teammates Jeff Garcia, the quarterback, and Owens.

Theirs is an excellence of an order that is completely unknown to, for example, Cincinnati running back Corey Dillon.

As Dillon again averaged over four yards in 22 carries last Sunday, the Bengals finally won their first game of the season but only because they lined up against the expansion Houston Texans, whom they smacked, 38-3.

For the last four or five years, considering the lack of overall quality in the Cincinnati organization, Dillon probably should have ranked as the NFL’s No. 1 running back.

Of the many reasons I continue to rate O.J. Simpson as No. 1 all-time at that position, one explanation is the way he rose above his mediocre supporting cast in Buffalo.

Drafted first by the worst pro club of its day, Simpson twice rushed for 1,800 or more yards on a team that was otherwise bereft of first-class quality at quarterback, wide receiver and other positions, and on the coaching staff.

By comparison, Jim Brown played for a hall-of-fame coach who was so able that his team, the Cleveland Browns, was named for him -- for the man who for decades was an Ohio football idol, Paul Brown -- the only time such a thing ever happened in this sport.

Powerful running-back candidates for 1-2 all-time remain Simpson and Walter Payton of Chicago, who until his old age as a Bear was stuck on bad teams that rose only occasionally to mediocrity.

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Injuries Decisive

Longevity is a different kind of quality in ballcarriers. As every football fan knows, the top two all-time in running back longevity are Payton and Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys. Thus, unsurprisingly, Smith and Payton are 1-2 in yards gained.

Most other NFL runners -- even the finest of the others -- have burned out or been rendered ineffective by injuries after an average of three or four seasons.

So there have always been and still are two categories of greatness at this position -- those who perform gloriously for a while before breaking up and those who last gloriously.

Among today’s running backs who have at times resembled the best you can name all-time -- except lately -- four are Eddie George of Tennessee, Edgerrin James of Indianapolis, Stephen Davis of Washington, and, of course, the recently retired Terrell Davis of Denver.

It was injuries that slowed them all down prematurely.

Like quarterbacks, ballcarriers are marked targets for the defensive hitters who manage to knock most of them out. And only rarely does any injured great back come all the way back. Instead, when one does return, he typically plays awhile at reduced speed on the instincts that made him what he was, then fades away.

One exception is San Francisco’s Hearst, who after a serious leg injury missed a season but who at the cost of long, painful rehabilitation has returned to preinjury form.

More typical is Gale Sayers, the short-lived (more exactly short-careered) all-pro who is often ranked with Jim Brown and O.J. Simpson in the all-time top three, though he couldn’t regain preinjury form.

With reason, some have called their position the saddest bastion of football.

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Faulk Amazing

The Ram star, Marshall Faulk, is still another kind of running back, one who could more accurately be referred to as a ball-advancer than ballcarrier. Faulk has shown more ways to move his club forward than perhaps any other running back since the NFL began.

The 3-5 Rams therefore, after an 0-5 start, could get back into the playoff race this year if only they were in a different division.

Their problem is that division rival San Francisco (6-2) is in the season’s handful of big winners in a 32-team league that boasts no fewer than 22 teams with, already, four or more defeats.

In an offense that presents a constant threat with passer Marc Bulger and runner Faulk, Faulk’s style is unique. As his team won again last weekend, outscoring division rival Arizona, 27-14, Faulk advanced the Rams 278 yards in rushes and catches that showcased him once more as the most amazing running back of his time.

What he did to Arizona was exactly what every situation called for whenever he had the ball.

When necessary, for example, Faulk advanced the Rams while running closer behind his blockers than any peer.

Or, when a quick-opening play was there, he again accelerated with more speed and better instincts than any other active running back. Or, after a catch, he did the same.

Faulk’s ability to make timely, often full-speed cuts is also unparalleled today and reminiscent of only two or three others before his time, among them Sayers and Simpson.

If he isn’t quite in their class, it’s only because the game has changed so much in the last 60 years.

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Five More Picks

Here are five guesses on the five big games this weekend:

* San Francisco to win by two or three points over Kansas City at 3Com Park. As good as the Chiefs have become, they’re still a year away from beating teams like this.

* Miami by six over the New York Jets at East Rutherford, N.J.: The Jets, 2-0 in their last two, are improving, but not yet by enough to overcome the Dolphin defense.

* Host St. Louis by seven over San Diego. The Chargers will penetrate the Ram defense, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they won, but a Ram defeat would be more surprising.

* New England by seven over Chicago in Champaign on the field that made Red Grange famous. Offensive play selection will undo a Bear team regaining form defensively.

* Denver by seven over Oakland on Monday night in Denver. This one might not be easy for the Broncos, but they do seem to be hitting playoff stride.