He’s Stan and He Delivers : He Emerges to Lead Charger Offense

SAN DIEGO —  He has the body of a linebacker, a linebacker who retired 15 years ago.

“I saw him a few weeks ago and I noticed he’s still got some weight to lose, but he’s not as flabby as when he first went to the Chargers,” said Jean Humphries, and a mother’s eye doesn’t lie.

Stan Humphries was born weighing 10 pounds, 10 1/2 ounces, and now some 220 pounds later the field is tipping in his direction. The Chargers are enjoying more success, the future is filled with playoff wonderment, and all because the pizza man delivers.

He threw for more yards than anyone else in the National Football League last week. He was the NFL’s player of the month for October, and his 20-for-27 performance against Denver was the best nonstrike showing for a Charger quarterback since Dan Fouts completed 24 of 31 in 1986.

The auditions have been painful, if not a disaster, but now Humphries is the eighth quarterback to earn a start for the Chargers since Fouts’ departure, and he is 4-4.

“He’s come around the quickest of any of them, and I was here for the tail end of Fouts’ career, so I have seen them all,” offensive tackle Broderick Thompson said. “There has been a lot of hope around here every time they think they have gotten that guy with the golden arm, but you know, I think he’s it.”

Offensive linemen, of course, are going to say nice things about Humphries, because each week he takes them to dinner and picks up the tab. Big tab, too. Offensive linemen eat a lot, almost as much as the Chargers’ starting quarterback.

“You look at my body and you think--offensive lineman,” Humphries said, “so I might as well hang with them.”

Humphries’ look has always been a weighty issue. When they gathered the 5-year-olds together to play basketball, they asked Humphries play with the 6-year-olds.

In Washington he played shortstop for a traveling softball team, and he could hit homers, drink beer and eat pretzels with the best of them.

On the Southwood High School football team in Shreveport, La., the 223-pound quarterback weighed more than any other player.

“First time I went out, I was big, but I played quarterback,” he said. “I was the kid who could throw the ball, and I knew the game.

“My dad could have played for the Chicago Bears, but he was in the Korean War. He used to tie a tire between trees and have me throw the ball through it. He wouldn’t let me leave until I made it.”

Humphries kept growing and throwing, and while he was the biggest quarterback in Shreveport, he was also one of the area’s finest basketball players.

“I’m not going to outrun anyone, but I can move,” Humphries said. “People see me now, but I’ve been this way all my life.”

Roger Carr, a former wide receiver for the Colts, Seahawks and Chargers, heard recently that his former Northeast Louisiana pupil had lost eight pounds.

“Tell him he needs to drop eight more,” said Carr, who is presently coaching at East Mississippi Community College. “I’ve always wanted to see him with less weight. He’d be so much quicker, but my gosh, how can you fault what he has done?

“I mean he was a natural. He could throw that thing from sideline to sideline, and there aren’t many guys in the NFL right now who can do that. I always thought he had that great arm; it was just a matter of him being in the right spot.”

That takes time and trouble and patience. After emerging as the top high school football prospect in Louisiana, Humphries accepted a scholarship to play at LSU.

LSU was no fun, and Humphries liked to have fun. He was not immediately included in the team’s football plans, and he was a young man away from home for the first time and there were girlfriend problems. His grades began to tumble.

The football team assigned an assistant coach to take Humphries to each of his classes to ensure his attendance, but while he was not fast, he was shifty. He eluded the coach, ditched his classes, landed on academic probation and dropped out of school.

“He wanted those academic troubles; I just don’t think Stan’s personality was suited for Baton Rouge,” said Pat Collins, who was coach at Northeast Louisiana at the time. “When he came home I think he made up his mind to give up football, and what a waste that would have been.

“His parents called me and we talked, and he didn’t know what was going on. The idea was to get him back in school.”

Humphries returned to Shreveport and worked for his uncle at a car lot doing odd jobs. He had been a high school hero, and now he was a big disappointment.

“I was not going to let him stop,” said Jean Humphries. “We talked him into calling the coach at Northeast Louisiana. Stan didn’t know we had already talked to the coach, and so he was real nervous.

“When they welcomed him there, he was so surprised to find out that somebody wanted him. I think that made him more willing to work.”

Humphries became the scout team quarterback at Northeast Louisiana, while Bubby Brister finished his career as starting quarterback. The Pittsburgh Steelers expended a third-round pick on Brister a year later, and Humphries became a starter again.

“Bubby was just a great athlete, quick, fast, powerful,” Collins said. “He was a tremendous fiery competitor and worked very hard in the weight room.

“Stan was on the other end of the spectrum.”

Obviously, that body hasn’t spent a whole lot of time in the weight room.

“I think it’s legit what people say (about his body),” Humphries said. “I’ve carried it so long, so it doesn’t bother me. I’ve never been that big of a workout guy; I was never into weights or things like that.

“People look at me and say, ‘My God, look how big this guy is at quarterback.’ I’ve always been like that. I don’t have to wear the rib pads because I already have them on.”

The cushion has allowed Humphries to withstand a defensive beating at times this season. Last week in Kansas City linebacker Derrick Thomas broke free four times to mug him from the blindside.

“All he said was, ‘Ouch,’ ” said tackle Harry Swayne, who was beaten by Thomas. “There are some quarterbacks who would go in the tank after getting hit like that, but he had us regroup at the half and we were coming on.”

Humphries, the leader, has been almost as impressive as Humphries, the tough guy. Although he has only 18 starts in the NFL, he has the kind of don’t-cross-me look that Fouts employed so effectively.

“He’s intense,” defensive end Burt Grossman said. “Before the game with the Colts we were in the training room and he was all upset because everybody was so loose. I said, ‘Relax, you don’t always have to be uptight.’ ”

After the Chargers defeated the Colts, 26-0, Grossman tossed an “I told you so,” to Humphries, but don’t look for Humphries won’t change his approach.

“He’s a competitor,” Charger General Manager Bobby Beathard said, “and you can see the effect he has had on people. He also has something I think all good quarterbacks have: He’s a little bit of a risk-taker.”

When Beathard watched Humphries compete in college he became determined to add him to his team. Beathard was general manager for the Redskins at the time, and Humphries was driving Northeast Louisiana to the Division I-AA championship.

“It’s something that still sticks in my mind,” Beathard said. “I remember watching film of him in this playoff game and if you drew a up game to say let’s look at this player and see everything you want to see, that was it.

“He rallied his team, which had fallen hopelessly behind, and he was matched against Aaron Jones, who was the No. 1 pass rusher in college at the time. He got the heck knocked out of him, took a beating and kept coming back until they finally won. It was just a fantastic game to watch.”

Vintage Humphries. Knock him down, and he gets right back up. In fact, during his championship senior season at Northeast Louisiana he was benched. The move threatened to end his professional career before it began.

“What helped me that year was getting married before the start of the season,” Humphries said. “I got benched and it was a reality check. I had a wife, and so football was not the only thing I had, and it helped me.”

Humphries remained dedicated, and after a week on the bench, he was back behind center and the Indians did not lose another game that season.

“I don’t see a big difference from his college days and what has happened to him in the pros,” Collins said. “He battled in college, dropped out of LSU, floundered and then found himself at Northeast. He’s done the same thing in the pros. He’s been frustrated and now he’s found himself; I think people are seeing just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what he can do.”

The Redskins selected Humphries in the sixth round of the NFL draft. It was LSU all over again. The Redskins wanted Humphries to remain in Washington during the off-season, and Humphries wanted to go home.

“There’s only one other guy that I remember at that position who didn’t want to stay in Washington and that was Tom Flick,” Beathard said. “In modern-day professional football it’s essential--at every position--but, my gosh, especially at that position.”

Forget it. They could not lock him in the classrooms at LSU, and they could not keep him in Washington during the off-season. Washington Coach Joe Gibbs became angry, and Humphries gained weight. This marriage was destined to end in a divorce.

“He has that tire wrapped around his middle, so I can see where he had problems in Washington,” said John Dunn, the Chargers’ strength and conditioning coach. “Washington has an established team, they have solid quarterbacking and so Humphries comes in as a talent and they want to see him make a commitment.

“They didn’t need to suck up to him, like we did when he first got here, because they didn’t need him right away. So his weight became a determining factor on whether he was a committed person. At the same time he’s not playing, and ballplayers naturally lose a little focus when that happens, and he has the type of body that just balloons up.”

Humphries’ body became a constant reminder to Gibbs that he had a quarterback who was not dedicating his life to football, and there was always Mark Rypien. There were others in the Redskins’ organization, however, who contended that Humphries was the best quarterback on the roster.

When Rypien went down with an injury in 1990, Humphries started the next five games. Observers suggested later that Humphries might have become the team’s long-term quarterback had Ernest Byner not dropped a key pass in the end zone. The reception would have let the Redskins end a five-game losing streak to New York.

“As much talk as there has been about that, it’s possible,” said Humphries, who went 3-2 as a starter before injuring a knee. “My play was up and down during that five-game stretch, and I got hurt, and maybe Coach Gibbs thought since I didn’t work out on weights I wasn’t in the shape I needed to be in and that’s why I got hurt. The off-season thing festered into something bigger, and then it was all blown out of proportion.”

After Gibbs handed the ball to Rypien, Humphries was banished to the sideline. He never played for the Redskins again after being hurt in 1990.

“I saw Stan just before he went to Washington this year, and he was bummed out,” said Bob Lane, former quarterbacks coach at Northeast Louisiana. “All of us want to feel we belong, but I don’t think he felt that way in Washington.”

The Redskins attempted to deal Humphries to teams such as Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Cleveland, but the Chargers showed the only interest.

“The only reservation we had when we talked about a trade for Stan, is there something we don’t know know about him?” Beathard said. “We got as many tapes as we could of him. There was one tape in particular of a Jets’ scrimmage that bothered me, but still we were interested.”

The Chargers haggled with the Redskins, and Beathard worried that his former team would never deal with him. After quarterback John Friesz went down with a season-ending knee injury, the two teams talked, but failed to come to terms.

“If we don’t make the trade, maybe I’m just at Pannikin’s every morning, sipping coffee and looking at the waves,” Beathard said. “It’s tough to get somebody to come in and do anything, much less get somebody you want. And I always had the highest regard for Stan.”

When Humphries starts Sunday against Cleveland, it will finalize the terms of the Chargers’ trade with the Redskins. Washington will receive the Chargers’ third-round pick in next year’s draft because he will have taken more than 50% of the team’s snaps.

“He’s very happy,” said Jean Humphries. “I think he’s in the right place and doing what he wants to do. Maybe we’re not winning every game or going to the Super Bowl, but he’s had that. He wants to play, and he just needed a break, and he’s gotten it.”

Since arriving in San Diego Humphries has not missed a weight room assignment. He said, “The guys in Washington won’t believe that,” but now that he’s playing, he’s motivated to remain healthy.

“I realize now they can save you,” he said. “I feel better about myself having gone through games and taken the shots that I have taken. Personally, I think some of the weight I do have helps me take those shots.

“But I also think there is something behind what people say, and as I get further along in my career, I’ll need to get down even more in weight.”

If Humphries continues to throw touchdown passes and push the Chargers toward the playoffs, he can feast on the cuisine of his choice.

“Who cares what he looks like,” cornerback Gill Byrd said. “He wins.”

Humphries earned a Super Bowl ring last year while standing on the sideline with the Redskins. He wears it on occasion to motivate himself and his new teammates.

“All I have wanted is a chance,” Humphries said. “Don’t judge me on five or six weeks, but give me the ball for a season and then let’s see what happens.”

In the past five weeks he has become comfortable with the offense, and he has completed 64% of his passes, thrown for 1,310 yards, including seven touchdown passes with five interceptions. Who needs Jenny Craig?

“The key to Stan is believing that he belongs and that he’s the man,” Lane said. “Once he’s convinced, I’m telling you, hold on to your hat.”