Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 26, 1994 TAG: 9410270065
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN DIEGO LENGTH: Medium
Even Bobby Beathard is having a throwback year.
In a season when NFL teams have honored the past by wearing vintage uniforms, the San Diego Chargers seem to be evoking their general manager's glory days of a decade ago, in a different conference on the opposite coast.
``People keep asking if it's like the Redskins, and I say, `I hope we get to where the Redskins were,''' Beathard said.
In the 11 seasons Beathard was GM at Washington, from 1978 to 1988, the Redskins reached the Super Bowl three times, winning twice.
The Redskins reached their first Super Bowl under Beathard in his fifth season. This is Beathard's fifth season in San Diego.
And with their success this year, some have suggested the Chargers (6-1) would stand the best chance of any AFC team to finally win the Super Bowl because they look so much like an NFC East team. Specifically, like the Redskins of the early 1980s.
For starters, quarterback Stan Humphries spent his first four seasons as a backup with the Redskins after being drafted by Beathard.
Then there's big back Natrone Means, San Diego's version of John Riggins, running behind a big offensive line.
But Beathard insists he is not trying to replicate the Redskins, or any other NFC East team.
``If it turns out that way, if there is an NFC East-type and this looks like one, I don't know. It's not done consciously,'' Beathard said. ``It's just the type of players that we like.
``We have a big offensive line, and a good running back and quarterback. I don't know, maybe it is like that,'' he said. ``But there's no conscious effort to make it look like some of those teams.''
Beathard will make one comparison - San Diego's offensive line to the famed Hogs in Washington.
``I would say if you want to compare areas there's similarities in the type of guys, like Stan Brock and Joe Milinichik and Courtney [Hall],'' Beathard said of his offensive line. ``You can probably see the same type personalities and same type guys as [Russ] Grimm, [Joe] Jacoby, [Jeff] Bostic and Mark May.''
Hall, the center, is one of only two players who preceded Beathard in San Diego. Just like the Hogs were the key to Washington's success, the offensive line is what really makes the Chargers go.
Said Means after San Diego hit 6-0: ``It's a centerpiece for us. Whenever they're in a groove, we're in a groove.''
Although San Diego lost 20-15 to Denver on Sunday, Means had his third straight 100-yard game.
When Beathard took over the Chargers in 1990, Dan Henning was the head coach. He had been offensive coordinator at Washington under Joe Gibbs, who in turn had been offensive coordinator at San Diego before Beathard hired him as Washington's coach in 1981.
Beathard fired Henning after the 1991 season and brought in Bobby Ross from Georgia Tech.
Ross said he adopted Henning's system because quarterback John Friesz was starting to get a grasp on it. But then Friesz blew out his left knee in the 1992 exhibition season.
Five days later, Beathard acquired Humphries from Washington.
``The fortunate thing to all of that was when Humphries came in he knew the system,'' Ross said. ``So that made for a quicker adjustment for us all. It worked out well.''
``When I came here the offense was basically the same as what we ran,'' said Humphries, who rode the Redskins' bench in their Super Bowl championship season of 1991.
Humphries doesn't mind the NFC East comparisons, because the Chargers like to establish the run first, and they have a punishing defense.
But, he added, ``We're not a football team everybody else was. We're our own football team. We've got to continue being that. We can't try to be somebody else.''
Backup quarterback Gale Gilbert has seen just enough of the NFC East to make a comparison.
Before coming to San Diego he was the No. 3 quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, who lost the past four Super Bowls to NFC East teams.
Do any remind of him of the 1994 Chargers?
``Oh, definitely the Redskins team we played in 1992 in Minnesota,'' Gilbert said. ``Stan was part of that team, and then came in here and called the same plays.''
by CNB