The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 40

D8 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2(X)I NFL WEEK 1 LOS ANGELES TIMES Mike Penner SOUND AND VISION There Aren yt Enough Words to Describe Football My best guess: The Bulldogs live in Fresno. They had to be excited about a weekend pass to Madison. As for what ABC was doing showing a tape of Regis Philbin interviewing Notre Dame Coach Bob Davie before the Notre Dame-Nebraska game, who can say? A pilot for a new game show, "Who Wants To Be Hung In Effigy In South Bend?" Regis, arms waving wildly above his head, stared Davie in the eye and demanded to know: When Davie mumbled something about establishing the running game, Regis jumped up in his chair, waved his arms some more, and began madly chanting: phones are trying to explain to the audience what is happening on the field below. Not surprisingly, the people on the screen are having greater success. The people behind the microphones are talking football not to be confused with "Talkin' Baseball," and, of course, it never will.

Lyrically speaking, talking football is infinitely more fascinating and entertaining, provided you first sent away for the requisite decoder ring. Also, it helps to have at least a loose grasp of the fundamentals. Fundamental No. 1: Football is essentially a bunch of very large humans leaning on one another, but it likes to pretend it is quantum physics. Football is a very simple game of grunting and punting, and deep down it knows that.

But many years ago, football searched long and hard for a way to lure some of the swooning intellectuals away from Fenway Park, so it decided to camouflage the basic acts of running, blocking and tackling in codified clouds of misdirection verbi The people on the screen are gyrating, sweating, getting physical, putting on a show. "Silky smooth," says one admiring voice. "There's a tail-dragger," someone else says. "See that explosion!" the first voice says again. "Got to hunker down!" "Got to be efficient down here!" "Now watch this: Make 'em miss.

Little jiggle joints here. Gives him a limp leg. Looked like his knee touched, but he stayed up." Surprisingly, the people on the screen are all fully clothed. "He's got tremendous quicks." "Trips at the top of the picture." "When they get into crunch area, they're not delivering it." Surprisingly, the people doing the talking are not speaking in tongues. The people on the screen are trying to win a football game for the universities of Washington and Michigan.

The people behind the micro better-looking physical football team, right now, than Nebraska is." And then, physically speaking, Notre Dame went out and got out-physicaled by Nebraska, at Nebraska, by a football score of 27-10. Talk about struggling in the red zone, i Fundamental No. 3: Assume, at all times, that everyone listening is up on the current terminology. Assume, at all times, that no piece of information is too inside for the casual viewer. This is America's Game we're talking about.

Corso, setting up a highlights package of Fresno State's upset victory over Wisconsin: "There were a lot of intangibles going against Fresno State." Kirk Herbstreit, sitting next to Corso, agreed that "the intangibles were a key in this game," but disagreed that the intangibles had gone against Fresno. The Bulldogs, Herbstreit said, have "the intangibles that coaches only hope for. They're something special." And what kind of intangible would that be? mathematics: He's a "2" but he can also play the "1," although he sometimes has trouble getting the ball to the "5" when he's being doubled by Fundamental No. 2: Repetition is all-important. Never say something in three words that can't be said in eight or 10.

Never lose track of where you are or who you're talking about: "You knew this was going to be a real football game." "We've got ourselves a football game now!" "He's the best football player playing football today in the National Football League." You could say the Notre Dame football team has an impressive looking collection of young athletes and leave it at that. Or, if you're Lee Corso, you can milk the clock: "I didn't think I'd say this in a long time. I think Notre Dame, physically, when you look at them, is the best-looking physical football team I've seen at Notre Dame in the last seven, eight years. I just walked out among 'em. They've got some big guys out there.

They're nice and lean. They've got some mean guys who are fast. They're a age. Which, when you think about it, makes Dennis Miller the perfect football broadcaster. That wide receiver running a sideline route and pulling away from the secondary isn't running fast.

No, listen up: He's "getting good separation." Watch him closely as he "separates." Remarkably, he arrives in the end zone with all four limbs intact. No left arm and right leg left strewn back at the 20. That quarterback dropping three steps into the pocket isn't about to throw the ball. No, he's getting ready to "execute the passing game." Which sounds like a pretty major penalty for a wide receiver who fails to separate. The home team can't punch it in from inside the opposition's 10-yard line, has to settle for a field goal instead of a touchdown? "They're struggling in the red zone." This little nugget is brought to you by the same kind of thinking that turned basketball from a free-flowing game of centers, point guards and power forwards into dry SAN DIEGO 30, WASHINGTON 3 Chargers Get It Right on First Try This Time nv.

Top of the Charts Doug flutie has the highest winning percentage among active quarterbacks with a minimum of 32 starts; Quarterback, Team Doug Flutie, San Diego 31-14 .689 Bret Favre, Green Bay 92-50 .648 Brad Johnson, Tampa Bay 33-18 .647 Steve McNalr, Tennessee 41-24 .631 Mark Brunell, Jacksonville 52-33 .612 1 By TONY PERRY TIMES STAFF WRITER SAN DIEGO-The San Diego Chargers did their best to distance themselves from last season's 1-15 debacle Sunday with a 30-3 victory over the Washington Redskins before 60,629 at Qualcomm Stadium. The Chargers showed attributes that were missing for a team that lost its first 11 games last season: a running game, a consistent defense, and a quarterback with a strong work ethic. Best of all, said Coach Mike Riley, they avoided the turnovers and other mistakes that also plagued the team last season. "We played really smart and hard," Riley said. "The combination of the two really won that game." Quarterback Doug Flutie, signed as a free agent by the Chargers after three seasons with the Buffalo Bills, completed 10 of 18 passes for 129 yards, and showed poise and competitiveness that his predecessor Ryan Leaf lacked.

That was particularly evident in the first quarter when Flutie was thrown for a seven-yard loss by defensive end Kenard Lang. With a replacement referee a tad slow with the whistle, Flutie jumped up and tried to regain a few yards even as Lang was doing a sack dance. The victory may have been just another afternoon at the office for old pro Flutie, but that wasn't the case for the running back LaDain-ian Tomlinson, the Chargers' No. 1 draft choice from Texas Christian. "When I first ran out, I had a tear in my eye," Tomlinson said.

"This was something I had dreamed about since I was a little kid. But when I got the ball, I figured, 'The time for talking is over, now's time for me to show what I've What Tomlinson had was 113 yards and two touchdowns in 36 carries the third most for a Charger back. After his first touchdown, Tomlinson was greeted by offensive line coach Joe Bugel with a critique. "He told me to just keep on pounding." "CRAZINESS OUT No one watching, and especially Davie, could make heads or tails out of what Philbin was getting at. But, then, that's football.

NEW ORLEANS 24, BUFFALO 6 Knight Is the Saints' Safety Net From Associated Press ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.-In the first half, Aaron Brooks looked hesitant. Ricky Williams was nearly invisible. It didn't matter as long as safety Sammy Knight kept getting the ball back for the New Orleans Saints. Knight matched a franchise record with three interceptions, two of which led to 10 points, jump-starting the Saints to a 24-6 season-opening victory over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. "That was huge," said Williams, who scored a touchdown and rushed for 87 of his 93 yards in the second half.

"Games like that, when the offense struggles, the only thing that kept us in was our defense." Thanks to Knight, the Saints overcame a 6-0 first-half deficit by scoring 17 points in the first 12 minutes of the third quarter. Brooks bounced back from an abysmal first-half performance, completing 18 of 29 attempts and three touchdowns as the Saints won a season opener for only the 10th time in 35 years. Buffalo quarterback Rob Johnson finished 16 of 27 for 160 yards and threw three interceptions for the first time in his career. Johnson also failed to capitalize on two trips inside the Saint 15-yard line, settling instead for rookie Jake Ar-ians' two field goals. SAN FRANCISCO 16, ATLANTA 13 (OT) 49ers Pass First Test With Rally From Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO-Garrison Hearst was solid, and Michael Vick was exciting.

Still, the San Francisco 49er receivers stole the show. Jose Cortez kicked a 24-yard field goal with 10:56 left in overtime as the 49ers rallied to beat the Atlanta Falcons, 16-13, Sunday in a game featuring the limited debut of Vick and the return of Hearst. Terrell Owens, J.J. Stokes and Tai Streets all turned short receptions into long gains late in the game each leading to a San Francisco score as the 49ers won with the passing game in their first outing since Jerry Rice moved on to Oakland. The 49ers scored 13 straight points in the final minutes to win after struggling through the first three quarters.

Owens and Stokes each had 93 yards receiving, while Streets added 83 yards for the 49ers. After Cortez made a 20-yard field goal with eight seconds left in regulation to tie it, San Francisco won the coin toss and opened overtime at its own 20. Jeff Garcia, who was 16 of 24 for 335 yards, found Streets with a short pass that he turned into a 52-yard gain. Moments later, Cortez made his third easy field goal, Vick played two series and didn't complete a pass in four attempts, but he rushed twice for 32 yards-including a 25-yard keeper that gave a hint of things to come. i Tomlinson, a holdout for much of the exhibition season, also got some advice from Flutie.

"I told him before the game it's not going to be these 80-yard runs that you're used to," Flutie said. "When there was nothing there, he got two yards. When there was something there, he got four or five. It's not pretty but it's great football." Tomlinson's touchdowns came on runs of one and three yards. Kicker Wade Richey bounced back from an erratic exhibition season by making all three of his field goals from 21, 48 and 32 yards.

The Chargers also scored 3V4 minutes into the game on an 84-yard punt return by Tim Dwight, a free agent signed from the Atlanta Falcons. The San Diego defense, meanwhile, pressured quarterback Jeff George into an eight-of-18, 66-yard passing performance that included two interceptions. George also fumbled and was replaced by Tony Banks. The Redskins, 8-8 last season, came close to scoring a touchdown twice in the second half. But running back Stephen Davis fumbled at the one-yard line in the third quarter and cornerback Ryan McNeil swatted down a Banks' pass at the 4 late in the game.

Of the Chargers' first five opponents, only the Redskins managed to win as many games as they lost last season, a fact adding to the Chargers' optimism about getting a fast start. "This feels great," said defensive tackle John Parrella. 70. i 1, 7 4 VINCECOMI'AGNONB Los Angelfs Times Charger LaDainian Tomlinson (113 yards, two touchdowns) eludes a Redskin defender. BALTIMORE 17, CHICAGO 6 Ravens Follow Familiar Script From Associated Press BALTIMORE The Baltimore Ravens used their standard formula for success with a twist.

The Ravens opened defense of their Super Bowl title Sunday with a performance reminiscent of last season, smothering the Chicago Bear offense and getting just enough production from a one-dimensional attack in a 17-6 victory. Last season, Baltimore's offense relied heavily on its running game. This season, with the addition of Elvis Grbac and the absence of injured running back Jamal Lewis, it appears the Ravens will be passing for points. Operating with little backing from the running game, Grbac went 24 for 30 for 262 yards. His first touchdown pass with Baltimore came with 1:48 left in the third quarter, a six-yard play to Sam Gash that gave the Ravens their first lead at 10-6.

"You've got to do whatever you do best, whatever it takes to win," Raven offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden said. "That's the way we're going to be. We could do a lot worse than that." Terry Allen, signed to replace Lewis in the Baltimore backfield, gained only 37 yards in 20 carries and lost a fumble. Baltimore managed only 54 yards rushing, and the futility was exemplified when Oba-femi Ayanbadejo was stuffed on a fourth-and-one from the Chicago 31 in the fourth quarter. But the Ravens won anyway, their 12th consecutive victory since Oct.

29. Chicago managed only two field goals, and made three first downs in the second half. James Allen, the last player to run for 100 yards against Baltimore (in 1998) had only 43 yards on 21 carries. "Our philosophy is, if they don't score, they don't win," Raven linebacker Ray Lewis said. "We'll give up a field goal here or there.

But when they get into the red zone, we knew we had to buckle down and that everything would fall in place." Shane Matthews went 24 for 39 for 138 yards but threw two interceptions, both in the final six minutes. "We shot ourselves in the foot," Matthews said. "We had our chances, we just didn't put it in the end zone." With Baltimore up 10-6, Jamie Sharper tipped a pass that was picked off by Lewis, who went 21 yards to the Chicago 35 with 5:24 left. After Grbac completed a 25-yard pass to Patrick Johnson, Allen scored from thel. "Any time you get a win under your belt, you'll take it any which way," Grbac said.

"Obviously, we have a lot of room for improvement. To put your defense out there for as much as we did in the first half, we have to improve on that to repeat." Associated Press Bears Walt Harris, bottom, and Brian Urlacher can't keep Raven running back Terry Allen from scoring on a one-yard run..