It`s a statistic that jumps right out at you: As many as four teams could be opening this year`s expanded National Football League playoffs without their starting quarterback.
Four. That`s a third of the 12-team field.
But neither Dan Dierdorf nor Paul Maguire-two of the best pro football analysts in the TV business-can figure out why. All they know is that ”it`s never a positive,” according to Dierdorf.
The new playoff format-which led to a 17-week season and two extra wild-card games-was dictated by a desire by the NFL to raise its TV revenue and by ABC to receive more product for its bucks.
”We didn`t care where the extra games came from,” retorts Dierdorf, now in his fourth season with ABC, ”we just wanted some participation in postseason play other than just the Super Bowl every third year.”
The playoffs changed, and so did the the injury situation surrounding the qualifying teams. It seemed that no sooner had a team made the playoffs, than, boom, an important player would fall.
”It`s certainly got everybody interested in who can heal quickest,”
says Dierdorf. ”It`s like there`s a watch on (as to) who can get back first and who can get back and be effective.”
Maguire, too, sees the Road to the Super Bowl filled with the healthiest- not necessarily the best-teams meeting in Tampa.
”Every Super Bowl`s the same,” says Maguire. ”It`s usually a team with a very good defense, a pretty good offense but (that) stays healthy.”
Or at least the team has an adequate substitute ready to replace the fallen star.
”The Buffalo Bills lost Jim Kelly,” says Maguire of the top-rated quarterback in the AFC, ”but they still had Frank Reich, who`s very solid. They have someone to step in who doesn`t have to be a miracle thrower.”
Like the Bears, he adds. Bears backup QB Mike Tomczak knows the system, while the Giants may suffer because backup Jeff Hostetler still is learning.
”That`s why the Bears stepped back in and won (after Jim Harbaugh`s season-ending injury),” says Maguire. ”It doesn`t matter who they play. If you have a quarterback who knows the system, you don`t really skip a beat. Hostetler knows the (Giants`) system, but he`s not as proficient in it as Tomczak is with the Bears.”
The recent rash of injuries to quarterbacks Harbaugh, Kelly, Phil Simms of the Giants and Warren Moon of the Oilers has only added to the criticism of the extended playoffs.
”A purist would sit back and say, `I wish the league hadn`t have done it because it cheapens the playoffs by allowing another team to get it,` ” says Dierdorf. ”But times change. And if this is as far as the NFL goes in allowing teams into the playoffs, I don`t think it`s a big problem.”
Maguire takes it a step further.
”There are going to be two wild-card teams in the AFC with better records than whoever wins the (AFC) Central Division,” says Maguire. ”How can that be all bad?
”Everybody at CBS was talking about how great the NFC was as opposed to the AFC all year long,” adds Maguire, in his fifth season at NBC. ”Now, all of a sudden, due to some injuries, you`re looking at the 49ers and the Bears
(as the lone NFC title contenders). The Giants aren`t even thought of anymore because Simms isn`t there anymore.
”But in the AFC, you`ve got the Raiders, Kansas City, Buffalo, Miami. It`s like the NFC is now nonexistant. What happened to `em? Where`d they go?” ”The longer you`re around this game, you see there`s no rhyme or reason to anything,” Dierdorf says. ”You`ll see long stretches without injuries. You`ll see some teams that make it through the entire season intact and the next season you`ll see the same team and half of their players are gone by the middle of October. It makes no sense, it just happens.
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”I used to come up with all these sophisticated reasons why these guys got hurt. . . . They get hurt because they get hit and fall the wrong way. You can`t figure it.”
Maguire, too, doesn`t subscribe to any theory on the plethora of injuries.
”And they`re freak, too,” he says. ”There is no theory. . . . The healthy teams wind up in the Super Bowl, and it`s been that way for 24 of them.”
Which is why the 49ers are an overwhelming favorite to win their third straight title.
”When you look at everybody else and then look at the 49ers, it`s going to take a major upset for someone to go to Candlestick Park and beat the 49ers,” says Dierdorf. ”In the AFC, Buffalo is the team. A 49er-Bills (Super Bowl) matchup would be sensational.”
Maguire, too, likes a 49ers-Bills Super Bowl, with the Raiders an outside possibility in the AFC.
”When the 49ers are healthy-and they are-you don`t beat them, they beat themselves. They turned the ball over six times (in their lone loss to the Rams). They`re too good a team for you to beat.”
Or beat up.