It’s Last Call to Impress Henning : Center, Running Back Among Areas That Have to Give
The final score may be the least important element when the Chargers (1-2) and Phoenix Cardinals (1-2) meet tonight at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium in the season’s final exhibition game.
Despite their won-lost record this summer, the Chargers have outplayed all three of their opponents defensively. And despite Coach Dan Henning’s refusal to publicly anoint him, Jim McMahon will almost certainly be his regular season starter at quarterback Sept. 10 against the Raiders in the Coliseum.
McMahon will start against the Cardinals and, Henning said, might play the whole game. It’s more likely he will play a half, and rookie Billy Joe Tolliver will play a half. Third-stringer David Archer will be lucky to get in.
“The order (McMahon-Tolliver-Archer) is all I can tell you,” Henning said Thursday.
More important for the Chargers will be how comfortable McMahon finds himself in his home debut with his new team. It also will mark the debut of defensive end Burt Grossman, the Chargers’ No. 1 draft choice. Grossman signed last Friday after a contract holdout that lasted more than a month.
Aside from Grossman and McMahon, positions to watch include center--where rookie Courtney Hall will start, and veterans Don Macek and Dennis McKnight also will play--and running back.
The Chargers must trim their roster from 60 players to the regular season limit of 47 on Monday. It is unlikely Hall, McKnight and Macek will all survive the final trim. And seven Chargers still on the roster have carried the ball in the preseason. Not all of them will survive either.
Henning wouldn’t say which ones will start, but he said all will play. The most impressive to date have been former Redskin Timmy Smith and rookies Marion Butts and Dana Brinson. Gary Anderson, the team’s leading rusher last year, remains an unsigned free agent.
Typically, teams save certain offensive and defensive alignments in their final exhibition game, the idea being to reveal as little as possible for the first regular season opponent.
“There will be some things (offensively) we will show no matter what,” Henning said, “because this is the first year we have been together, and we have a lot of young guys. Defensively, though, we will be a lot more conservative.”
Charger Notes
The Chargers have a roster exemption from the league on veteran linebacker Keith Browner, who hasn’t practiced in more than a week. Asked to categorize the exemption, Charger Coach Dan Henning said, “You’ll have to ask the league.” The league had no official comment Thursday. But NFL spokesman Joe Browne said the league would say something about Browner’s status today.