8802140249
DETROIT FREE PRESS
881010
Monday, October 10, 1988
METRO FINAL
1G
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1988, Detroit Free Press
FORGIVE THE NEW GUY IF HE'S A LITTLE RUSTY
He was wearing a Detroit Lions cap and he stood under a Detroit Lions
banner. He was still wearing his Detroit Lions pants.
"Had you ever played in the Silverdome before today?" a reporter asked.
"No," he said.
"Had you ever been in the Silverdome?"
"No."
"Had you ever been in Detroit?"
"No."
Ladies and gentlemen, our new starting quarterback. Rusty Hilger had
practiced all of three days with the Lions before Sunday's game against the
Chicago Bears. Three days is not much time in the NFL. Three days is very
little time. Three days is barely long enough to say to your receivers:
"How's it goin'?"
And Chuck Long went down.
A knee injury. Second quarter. He hobbled off the field. The regular
backup, Eric Hipple, was already gone, out last week with a broken ankle. And
so, with the Lions already drowning under a 1-4 record, and the Motor City
already braced for another miserable football season, all eyes turned to
Rusty, who was, well, let's be honest here, rusty.
No matter. They gave him the helmet, a handful of instructions, and command
of the night brigade.
Have fun.
"Weren't you kind of hoping for a little more time to learn the system?"
Hilger was asked, after the Lions lost again, 24-7.
"Well, if I can be a little funny here," he said, 'I told Chuck before the
game if he was going to get hurt, he better go to the hospital or else I'd
kill him."A tough way to meet people It would be funny if it weren't so
sad. Here, inside a home stadium filled with more -- or at least louder --
Chicago fans than Detroit fans, the Lions were trying to win a game with a
quarterback who last week was coaching a high school team in California.
High school? Yes. Cut from the Raiders before the season started, Hilger,
26, had been biding his time working with the quarterbacks at El Segundo High
School near Manhattan Beach. Last week, the Lions called. Hilger was happy. He
might have been happier if they'd waited until he got over the jet lag.
"Wasn't it strange throwing to players you didn't even know?" someone
asked.
"Well, yeah, it was. Sometimes, when we got back into the huddle, I didn't
know who to say 'Good job' to or who to say 'You do this, or that.' Sometimes
I didn't know who was catching the passes until they spun around and I saw the
name on their jersey."
Not that he had that many completions. These, after all, are the Lions.
Hilger's final numbers were 13-for-43, 186 yards, with one touchdown, one
interception, a lot of bobbles and a fair share of balls that just sailed over
everyone's head. But hey. What do you expect for three days? A new system? New
plays? Against the Chicago Bears? Do you know how tough that is? It would be
like landing in Afghanistan and being asked to do somebody's taxes.
"The play calling was the toughest part. Someone would run into the huddle
and say, 'East, Under Strong.' And I'd say, 'Uhhh . . . OK . . . East, it's
east, it's under, let's see, that means . . . right, it's strong, it's 872
wide, right, OK, and meanwhile the 30 second clock is going tick tick away. .
. ."
The Lions coaches tried to simplify things. They stuck with eight or nine
basic plays. They abandoned signals from the sideline and sent in each play.
Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.
"I thought he did a real good job considering the circumstances," said Pete
Mandley, who caught three of Hilger's passes, including a 56-yard heave and a
seven-yard strike for the Lions' only touchdown. "Every once in a while he'd
call something and we'd have no idea what he was talking about. But we'd just
tell him to call something else."
Hey. If they'd tried that with Chuck Long, they might have won a few games
by now.
A silver and blue lining
But such is the state of affairs with our NFL football team, funny and
tragic at the same time. Even when they started to move Sunday, in the third
quarter, their momentum was squashed when Steve Mott snapped the ball about 20
feet into midair. He thought Hilger was behind him. Which he was. Way behind
him. In the shotgun formation. Ooops.
The Bears recovered.
And the Bears won. Easy. You wonder if they knew this was an away game,
considering how many of the 64,526 Silverdome fans were rooting for Chicago.
They could have been visitors from the Windy City. If so, they had damn good
seats.
How disgusting. There were Bears banners and Bears costumes everywhere.
Doesn't the home team at least deserve a home crowd? At one point, Bears fans
grew so loud that Hilger had to step back from scrimmage until they died
down. In his own stadium? Can you believe it? "I have never played an away
game at home before," Hilger said.
Might as well get used to it. Sad? Ugly? We call it football. And face it:
This quarterback situation is amusing, but the Lions are going nowhere once
again. Their season is already a wash. They are 1-5, they play the Giants
twice in the next three weeks and you can forget it.
A bright spot? You want a bright spot? OK. I saw something in Hilger that
is encouraging. When asked about his performance Sunday, he quickly said:
"A veteran quarterback should be able to step in and play a little better
than I did today. I'd like to give a public apology to the people of Detroit.
"
One week with the Lions and he's already apologizing.
The man is obviously a fast learner.
COLUMN; DLIONS;RUSTY HILGER;Lions