THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 13, 1994 TAG: 9412130396
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Analysis
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
How fitting that Heath Shuler played the phoenix Sunday in Arizona.
After an Oct. 16 game with the Arizona Cardinals at RFK Stadium, Shuler's embryonic career appeared to be going down in flames. The rookie quarterback, the third pick in the 1994 draft, threw five interceptions in a horrific 19-16 overtime loss.
The Arizona defense was uncharacteristically passive, forcing Shuler to read a maze of coverage. The rookie looked like he was aiming at the bulls-eye of a dunking machine. One throw was high. Another was wide.
Redskins fans treated Shuler as if he had conned them into buying a phony Rolex.
Even coach Norv Turner, a preacher of patience from the beginning, bailed on him.
Another rookie, Gus Frerotte, got the starting nod the following week at Indianapolis. When Frerotte showed uncommon poise in leading Washington to a rare victory, sports writers - present company included - slipped a fresh floppy into the PC.
This would be some story - a lowly seventh-round pick, the 197th player nabbed, a minimum-wage, lunch-bucket-carrying stringbean beating out the highest-paid player in the history of a franchise that has sported a well-heeled quarterback or two. Shuler, meanwhile, would slink out the back door at Redskin Park and off to another NFL outpost. Dishonored. A bust. A draft-day disaster.
But by the end of his third start, Frerotte showed many of the same flaws that dogged Shuler. Six throws into a shellacking at Dallas, he was yanked and Shuler was back - another twist in a rookie season already far more bizarre than he imagined possible.
Fast-forward to Sunday. A different Shuler faced a different Arizona defense. The Cardinals came after him. They had outsmarted him the first time; now, the NFL's top defense would pound him into submission.
It never happened. Down 7-0 and facing second-and-14, Shuler blazed a pass to Henry Ellard. Fourteen yards exactly. Then he hit Desmond Howard for 22. A couple of plays later, he went back to Ellard for 11 more yards.
That's how it went for most of the day. Shuler made the Cardinals pay for assigning Aeneas Williams to single-coverage of Ellard. Ellard caught eight passes for 191 yards and a touchdown. Howard grabbed four for 83 yards.
No, the Redskins didn't win. But Shuler wasn't the reason. He hit 16 of 27 throws for a personal-best 286 yards.
Backs Ricky Ervins and Brian Mitchell caught just one pass each, a barometer that Shuler no longer is content with those bailout throws of his early performances.
Shuler still hasn't mastered the fine art of driving his team into the end zone on a consistent basis. That'll come, especially when he is surrounded with more capable talent, especially a power runner.
Bottom line Sunday: Shuler turned a 15-14 lead over to the defense with 2:54 left in the game and the defense couldn't make it stick.
The painting around the edges of this often-frustrating work-in-progress is done. Flushed out of the pocket on one play, Shuler burrowed around and over half-a-dozen Cardinals on a 26-yard journey we'll view again and again before he calls it a career.
He said he saw the whole remarkable gallop in slow motion: The rush from the line, the hole through which he squeezed. The linebackers converging, then clutching at him. The Cardinals safeties unsuccessfully trying to separate his head from his helmet.
Class athletes often speak of seeing their world in slow motion. It's one of the things that separates them from all of us.
The season has been a blur for Shuler: a series of swift, painful, humiliating lessons. It's significant that the Cardinals looked to him like they were flying in place as they were flying after him.
It's the best sign yet that Shuler is closer to being an NFL answer, not a question. by CNB