Gilbert Cut Out for Job

SAN DIEGO —  Here, in a place called Stan Diego, there is no such thing as quarterback controversy, only quarterback consternation.

Every week, it’s the same angst, the same query, only with occasional variations on the theme.

How’s Stan’s: a) hip? b) knee? c) ankle? d) head? e) shoulders? f) all of the above? g) whatever it is we didn’t think of but need to immediately start fretting about?

Keeping track of Stan Humphries is a bit like keeping track of Chris Miller, in that you can usually find both getting wrapped in the trainer’s room. The difference is that Humphries’ welfare directly affects that of the Chargers. Last week, Humphries wrenched his ankle, missed one series and the Chargers lost for the first time this season. With the Rams, Miller or Chris Chandler--it really doesn’t matter who gets to hand off the ball to Jerome Bettis.

So when Humphries fell on his left elbow early in the third quarter Sunday and had to be escorted off the field, the electricity in the air at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium was instantly replaced with high anxiety.

In the stands and in the Chargers’ offensive huddle.

“When Stan went down, I said to myself, ‘This is it,’ ” tailback Natrone Means said. “ ‘This is going to show us what kind of character we have.’ ”

Gale Gilbert, in other words.

What kind of character spends nine seasons as an NFL quarterback without throwing a pass in five of them? Who goes three years between center snaps? Who is so fastidious about career details that he arranges them neatly in election years?

Last touchdown pass? 1990.

Last appearance in back-to-back games? 1986.

Last significant role in a winning effort? 1984, when Gilbert was a senior at California.

We go to the polls again Tuesday, so Gilbert was due. He hadn’t done much in 1994 except fail to bail the Chargers out last Sunday against Denver, misfire on four of six pass attempts and leave unsightly rust stains on the football.

Sunday against Seattle, Gilbert tried it again, this time getting nearly two quarters in. This virtually doubled his total playing time for the decade.

He threw 14 passes, improving his post-1986 total to 25.

He completed 11. Post-’86 total: now 21.

He managed two touchdown passes even, jumping his career total a full 33%, from six to a hearty eight.

And he won.

Not mop up, not run out the clock, not hold for the clinching field goal, not take two snaps and plant the right knee on the turf twice.

With 12:46 remaining in the third quarter of a 14-7 game, Gilbert had to produce. This was no time to pitch the ball to Means, backpedal out of the way and sit on a seven-point lead. Not with Rick Mirer, Chris Warren and Brian Blades still on the Seahawks’ active list. There was too much time for that.

So Bobby Ross sent Gilbert in there, but just in case, he made sure the trainers taped up Humphries’ left elbow good and fast. It’s dislocated, sure, but Stan only needs the right one to throw, right?

“He could have come back and played,” Ross said of Humphries, “but it would have been limited. We just didn’t feel like it was necessary.”

Gilbert saw to that, which is top-of-the-page news in San Diego. Gilbert came right in and drove the Chargers to a touchdown on his first series. Granted, San Diego got the ball on the Seattle 37, and Means got 27 of the yards himself, but Gilbert had succeeded at least in not getting electrocuted while getting his feet wet.

Two fourth-quarter touchdown passes followed, to Alfred Pupunu for eight yards and to Tony Martin for 16, and the Chargers were on their way to a 35-15 victory, feeling slightly better about their chances if Gilbert has to start next week’s game against Atlanta.

Afterward, the reporters around Gilbert treated the victorious quarterback as if he were an amnesia sufferer?

“Do you remember your last touchdown pass?”

Yes, Gilbert did. “1990, against the Redskins,” he reported. Gilbert was a Buffalo Bill then and “we had just clinched the home-field advantage. It was the last game of the season, so Frank (Reich) and I played a half each. I threw a couple of ‘em in the second half.”

“When was the last time you played this long in a game?”

Gilbert: “1986. I started two games against the Chiefs and the Jets. In eight years, I played two full games.”

“Did you win either of them?”

Gilbert: “No. We got killed in both.”

“So when was the last game you started and won?”

Gilbert had to think that one over a while.

“It had to have been 1984, in college,” he said. “A bad year too. A real bad year. I had everything going for me--there was some talk about me going in the first round of the draft--and I tore ligaments in my knee. The team ended up 2-9, I think.”

Gilbert wound up signing with Seattle as a free agent in 1985, re-injuring his knee in 1987, missing all of 1988 and bouncing to Buffalo in 1989.

“I actually won the backup job there,” Gilbert said, “and during the last game of the preseason, I broke some ribs. They brought Frank Reich back, he came in and pulled three games out for them that season and the rest is history.”

Gilbert’s signing with San Diego last winter was for reasons more financial than providential. The Chargers simply didn’t want to pay John Freisz. So they reached into the bargain bin, took a flier on Gilbert--and prayed for Humphries’ good health.

“I spent five years in Buffalo and went to four straight Super Bowls,” Gilbert said. “But the main thing in this game is to play.”

Gilbert has ridden coattails much too long. For once in his career, he’d like to be the one wearing the coat.

Sunday, he tried it on for size. The fit and the cut were just about right.