Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 102

PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS PAGE 103 MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1997- Yffiwr ire dDinig Sft imp atugtw in wimwiwiiii imuji iiiiin 11 nwwimiii.iiin i niiw.ij.i iL.iiiu.iiBiiiiiuii.iiii i I i -MMIIMIIIilrlMl III' I II- fl --'J" tinued greatness. But at this stage in the game, with the other playoff contenders shooting themselves in the feet, the Eagles don't need an all-time great quarterback. They need a competent signal caller, someone who can make some good things happen, avoid costly errors and show the mox-ie occasionally to step up to the challenge. So far, Hoying, who took over as the Birds' No. 1 quarterback in the fourth quarter G.W.

MILLER III DAILY NEWS leaves Veterans Stadium with SMALIOOD against San Francisco three weeks ago, has shown that. "Bobby has definitely sparked this team," said Eagles coach Ray Rhodes, who saw his quarterback distribute his 26 completions among nine players. "He's making the most of this opportunity. "He's showed a lot of poise and grew up on the job today. He showed poise you don't see in a lot of young guys." Make no mistake, the Eagles were about to lose their last playoff life yesterday.

Led by ancient quarterback BoomerEsiason, who had yet another fountain-of-youth experience against the Eagles by passing for 378 yards and four touchdowns, the Bengals scored two touchdowns in less than 2V2 minutes to take a 42-41 lead on Brian Milne's 1-yard scoring plunge with one minute left on the clock. The Birds were on the verge of handing away the opportunity given them when the three teams in front of them in the NFC East the Giants, Redskins he beauty in this is there is no need to go overboard with praise of Bobby Hoying. It is not necessary to look at the second-year quarterback's first three NFL starts and try to make silly comparisons to Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John El-way, Johnny Unitas or any other legendary signal caller. At this point, it's not even necessary to wonder if Hoying will be as good as Brett Favre, Drew Bledsoe and Mark Brun- ell. Those are all things to worry about tomorrow.

Right now, after yesterday's dramatic, 4442, last-second victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, the only quarterback the Eagles have to worry about Bobby Hoying playing like is Bobby Hoying. Hoying isn't the second coming of anyone yet, but he has played well since getting the calL Most importantly, he is 2-0-1 as the Eagles starting quarterback. If Hoying can just keep doing for the next three games what he has been doing, the Eagles have a realistic chance of running the table, finishing 9-6-1 and, miraculously, qualifying for the playoffs. "I'm just doing the best I can to take one play at a time, and not get caught up in the other stuff that's going on," said Hoying, who has rewarded Eagles fans' chants of "Bobby, Bobby" with a quality of play that has given them hope for the present and the future. Against Cincinnati, Hoying passed for a career-high 313 yards and four touchdowns, and when that wasn't enough, he engineered a pressure-packed drive in the final minute that resulted in a game-winning, 31-yard field goal by Chris Boniol as time expired.

It was another critical step that a developing quarterback must take, whether he is going to be great, good or simply competent "One thing I learned when I wasnt playing is how tight every game is at this level," said Hoying, who threw his first interception, though it was immediately fumbled back to the Eagles. "You dont blow teams away like you did in college. It's tough to take a deep breath during a game sometimes. -You have to keep concentrating for all four quarters." As we found out last year with Ty Detmer, whose starting career had a stellar opening but has since regressed, a great beginning is no guarantee of con- JOHXfC Eagles quarterback Bobby Hoying and Cowboys all lost this week, as did the wild-card contending Panthers. Hoying had 60 seconds to take the biggest test a quarterback can face.

"I think, first of all, you're really deflated because you've just lost the lead," Hoying said, in relating what he was feeling as the Eagles began the climactic drive on their 26-yard line with 54 seconds left. "I just went in and said, 'All we need is three "It wasn't like we had to score a touchdown. All we needed was a couple of big plays and give iBoniol a chance to kick. I just knew we were in a tight situation. We had to make some plays, and we didn't have a lot of time to do it" said of the 30 carries and 134 yards racked up by Ricky Waiters, Charlie Garner and Kevin Turner.

"But Bobby beat us today," Big Daddy said. "Bobby hurt us escaping from the pocket a few times. Other times, he just stood in there like a champ and made plays. "I thought we had a won ball-game at the end there, and Bobby corrected me." Then there's Bo Orlando, a Bengals safety and the pride of Berwick, Pa. He has seen enough of Hoying as well, thank you.

fiancee Jill Goecke and dad Vern back Ricky Walters said of Hoying's demeanor during the decisive drive. "He just continued to do what he does that's make plays, play hard, run when he has to, stay in the pocket and--make last-second throws. "That's what I like. It shows he's a competitor. I don't think anyone could have imagined Bobby would come this far this quickly.

If he keeps progressing, he'll become a great one." But again, that's about tomor- -row. Today the Eagles (6-6-1) are a game behind the Giants (7-5-1). The two teams will play Sunday at Veterans Stadium. If the Eagles win their final three games home against New York, at Atlanta and at Washington and the Giants lose or tie either Washington or Dallas, the Birds, as improbable as it was just two weeks ago, will win the East and host a playoff game. "Somebody told me Iwhen Hoying was named starter that Ray had said the only chance I'd get to play was if the season was over," said Hoying, who has passed for 929 yards and is tied with Detmer with a team-leading seven touchdown passes.

"I said, 'That's not how I'm going to look at "We're still in this thing, and we still have a good shot at get- ting into the playoffs. We've got another huge game coming up this week. I don't think I looked at it as I'm going to go out, make mistakes and learn for next year. I want to go out and win right now." To do that, the Eagles don't need Hoying to be Joe Montana. They need him to keep being Bobby Hoying.

Hoying started with a huge, 28-yard completion to Irving Fryar, but then he was sacked for a 1-yard loss, leaving the Eagles with a second-and-11 on the Cincinnati 47 with 37 seconds left. An incompletion was next, but Hoying followed up with a 16-yard pass to Freddie Solomon at the Bengals' 31. The quarterback spiked the ball to stop the clock with 10 seconds left. Then came one of the biggest plays of the season. Lacking confidence that Boniol could make a 48-yarder, the Eagles wanted to get closer.

They had one shot to do it. A perfectly thrown "out" pattern to Fryar moved the Birds to Cincinnati's 13, giving Boniol a considerably easier game-winner. "He didn't say much," running "He's probably not the best quarterback we've played this year, but he played well today," Orlando said. "Any time there's a young guy, you want to get to him. You want to rattle him.

But he showed some poise last week against Pittsburgh, and we knew from watching that game that it was going to take more than rattling. We knew we were going to have to take him to the ground." But the Bengals only sacked Hoying twice. And they paid in the end. Rich Hofmann Bengals7 Wilkinson a Hoying fan Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Dan Wilkinson, "Big Daddy" to you and me, played with Bobby Hoying at Ohio State. So, no, he said he wasn't surprised.

"He's a young quarterback and he's growing up and my hat's off to him," Wilkinson said after Hoying threw for four touchdowns and engineered the drive that culminated with Chris Boniol's game-winning field goal as time ran out "You try and go out and stop the run every week, and I thought we did a pretty good job with that today," Wilkinson.