Globe-Gazette from Mason City, Iowa • 29

D30 Sunday Globe SPORTS NOV. 1989 NFL Today: Week 10 Rams' Robinson still 'up' despite 4 losses start. The Steelers, routed 34-7 in Denver, are tougher at borne. GREEN BAY (5-4) AT DETROIT (1-8) The Lions are the best 1-8 team in football, which doesn't mean much since the Cowboys are the other. The defense, which was supposed to be the strength, is suffering, the offense thriving, although three sacks, a fumble and an interception probably prevented an upset in the 35-31 loss in Houston last week.

The Packers come in flying high, having beaten the Bears for the first time in nine tries, which probably means they're ripe for an upset. They're 0-3 on the rond and needed overtime to beat the Lions in Milwaukee 23-20 just two weeks ago. MIAMI (5-4) AT NEW YORK JETS (2-7) The Dolphins, who don't have a team with a winning record left on their schedule actually have a decent shot to win the AFC East, although they need to finish a game ahead of Buffalo to do it they've lost twice to the Bills. Sammie Smith, 123 yards in 25 carries, finally showed last week why he was a No. 1 pick.

These two have averaged 70.9 points between them and totaled 65 touchdowns in their last seven meetings. The Jets won this year's first game 40-33 and it could happen again. Their offense rolled up 486 yards in last week's 27-26 win over New England after four weeks with just one offensive TD. season. So there is no need to force-fit anything." Infante said Mandarich's attitude about his playing status has been admirable: No groaning or griping.

"He's done everything we've asked him to do," Infante said. "He's very much part of what we're doing. He's adapting fine. The only area that we still are spending a lot of time on is the pass protection area. He's progressing rather well in that regard.

"I still contend and still say that you'll see him much more and more as the season wears on." Some fans have even suggested switching Mandarich to defense or giving him the football, a la Chicago's William Perry, and letting him pile drive into the end zone. No way, Infante says. "You can't take an offensive lineman and make a running back out of him and you can't take an offensive lineman and make him a defensive lineman. "It just doesn't work that way. The game has become too specialized.

I understand the urgency about allowing him to score a touchdown somewhere at some point in time against some particular team, but that, quite frankly, is not going to happen and I tried to put a stop to that long ago." Mandarich is going home today, back to Michigan where he played so well in college, where the Packers will play the Detroit Lions. Mandarich would prefer to return as a starter, but his friends will be there to watch anyway. will be all-this and ail-that. I ain't saying that, but I missed camp and this offense is not that easy to learn but that's no excuse. "When you get paid this much, you should perform." Once they signed him, the Packers got a two-week roster exemption for Mandarich and hoped to ease him into their system.

And that's what they did in his first game in the third week of the season at Los Angeles, where they played him on short-yardage situations. But since then, Mandarich's playing time has increased very little. Last week when the Packers beat the Chicago Bears, Mandarich played only a handful of downs. He has not been able to unseat Veingrad, who would probably have been on the Packer bench himself this season if tackles Keith Uecker and Mike Ariey had not been suspended 30 days for steroids. Veingrad spent all of last season on the injured list with a hip ailment.

Veingrad is a- more consistent pass blocker than Mandarich and the Packers' multiple offense relies heavily on its line's ability to protect quarterback Don Maj-kowski and give him time to throw. Coach Lindy Infante says it's too early to measure Mandarich's potential impact. "His value to this football team is going to be the return on our investment over the long haul," Infante said. "And I'm talking years and years and years of a lot of solid play. We do not have to recover all of our investment in the first Tony Mandarich is angry with himself for not performing well so far this season.

That made him the highest paid rookie in Packers history and one of the team's wealthiest players. But instant money didn't make him an instant hit in the NFL. "I'm used to being a starter and not just being a starter, but one of the top two or three contributors on the offense," said Mandarich, an Ail-American at Michigan State. "It's been tougher than I think I've shown it I go home and sometimes I want to put my head through the wall because I get so angry and so mad at myself just for the fact that I haven't performed well yet. "I don't show that, but it's definitely put a lot of stress on my life, especially since I'm supposed to be all-this and ail-that.

And I Now at peace with Green Bay, he wants to play GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) Tony Mandarich signs autographs in shopping malls, poses for pictures with infants, fields questions on call-in radio shows and consents to countless interviews. He's made peace with Green Bay, the small city he still calls a village, a place that wasn't his first choice to live and work. But what the 6-foot-5, 315-pound Mandarich hasn't done much this season is play football for the Green Bay Packers. Most of his Sundays have been spent on the sidelines waiting and watching.

It's a new and frustrating experience for a player who was so dominating in college, who promised to revolutionize the offensive tackle position, who says he was offered a fight with Mike Tyson. Mandarich, with the speed of a linebacker and a body bulked up from hours of weight-lifting, was considered by many pro scouts to be one of the best offensive linemen ever to come out in the college draft. But from the outset of his professional career when the Packers made him the No. 2 pick overall in the 1989 draft, he's been behind. Now he's behind veteran tackle Alan Veingrad on the right side of the offensive line.

Mandarich skipped the team's minicamps, then sat out training camp in a salary dispute before settling on a four-year, $4.4 million contract that included a $2 million signing bonus. Matt Brinkman leads UNI past Salukis CEDAR FALLS' (AP) Matt Brinkman of Sheffield and Willie Beamon returned interceptions for touchdowns to pace Northern Iowa to a 38-14 Gateway Conference football victory over Southern Illinois on Saturday night. Northern Iowa also got a touchdown on a 45-yard punt return by. Milo Popovic, as the Panthers moved to 4-2 in the league and 7-3 overall. Northern Iowa took advantage of five Saluki turnovers including four interceptions.

Southern Illinois (1-5 and 2-9) closed to within 17-7 in the second quarter on Brandon Prenger's six-yard touchdown pass to Rob Der-ricotte. But Brinkman picked off a Saluki pass and went 20 yards for a score later in the period. Prenger hit John Roots with a 2-yard touchdown pass just seconds before halftime, to cut the Northern Iowa lead to 24-14. After a scoreless third quarter, Beamon ran 48 yards with an interception to give the Panthers a 31-14 lead. Popovic's punt return closed the scoring.

Northern Iowa quarterback Ken Macklin opened the scoring with a one-yard run in the first quarter. He hooked up with Popovic on a 57-yard touchdown pass later in the opening period. Macklin finished with nine completions in 21 attempts for 155 yards. Northern Iowa's Brian Mitchell kicked a 48-yard field goal in the second period. ffi a A a ll LJJLI UUvHJg UIJv-Ji IUJ I II Jrecorded -J i-J V- I WNOL i snowfall jV NEW ORLEANS (4-5) AT NEW ENGLAND (3-6) The Patriots are down to their fourth quarterback, Marc Wilson, who was 12 of 18 for 177 yards and two touchdowns in relief of Steve Grogan last week.

But whoever starts this week still has to deal with a crowd that chants for Doug Flutie after the first incompletion. The Saints still have a shot at a wild card if the Rams, Bears, Packers and Eagles falter, but their slow start may have done them in. It was a bad week overall not only did they lose 30-13 Monday night in San Francisco, but their plane overshot the runway four times at 5:30 a.m. and a storm flooded their practice facility. DALLAS (1-8) AT PHOENIX (4-5) The Cowboys, with a 1-game winning streak, go for two in a row against Gene Stalling's hospital ward.

"It takes away a lot of negative talk," coach Jimmy Johnson says of the 13-10 win in Washington. "It takes away all that O-for-16 stuff." The Cards, who beat the Cowboys 19-10 in Irving two weeks ago, are less worried about their psyche than their physical health. Last week against the Giants, a Phoenix team that has had 16 starters hurt this year lost offensive tackle Luis Sharpe and J.T. Smith, the league's leading receiver, and quarterback Gary Hogeboom bruised a hand. The Cardinals also don't know which quarterback to prepare for Troy Aik-man's injured hand has healed and Johnson may not decide if he will replace Steve Walsh until game time.

LOS ANGELES RAIDERS (5-4) AT SAN DIEGO (3-6) Since Art Shell took over, the Raiders are 4-1. Bo Jackson got there about the same time and his 92-yard TD run against the Bengals last week made him the first player ever to have two 90-yard-ers from scrimmage in his career. "Having Bo on the team makes things a lot easier," says Howie Long, one of the many Raiders whose recovery from injury has also helped. Bo plays into the Chargers' weakness stopping the run. Leslie O'Neal and Lee Williams do a good job of pass rushing, but they gave up 178 yards on the ground to the Eagles last week.

CINCINNATI (5-4) AT HOUSTON (5-4) "Pain," is the operative word for this one, not only because of what the Oilers call the Astrodome but because of the Bengals' physical condition. The Bengals lost 28-7 to the Raiders last week without Boomer Esiason, who left in the first quarter after bruising a lung, and running backs James Brooks and Eric Ball, who also got hurt. Esiason was still spitting blood early in the week but should be If not, it's rookie Erik Wilhelm. By The Associated Press John Robinson views his Rams as a 5-4 team, not one that has lost four straight games. As he prepares for a visit from the 8-1 New York Giants Sunday, Robinson is thinking positive.

Instead of dwelling on the four defeats two in the final seconds he's taking the approach that the Rams are still in good position for a wild card playoff spot. "I judge a lot by how I feel," he says. "And I'm not discouraged at all. I actually feel more confident about us now than I did a week ago. The scary thing about a slump is, 'Will we ever play good I don't have that feeling." The Rams started 5-0, including a win over Super Bowl champion and division rival San Francisco.

They suffered a possibly devastating loss last week to Minnesota. Robinson, however, looks at the positives like the two fourth-quarter touchdown drives engineered by Jim Everett, who after three down weeks completed 18 of 30 for 200 yards against the NFL's top defense. He gets more of the same in the Giants, whose defense is ranked fourth in the NFL and has 13 sacks in the last two games. In their last seven games, the Giants have allowed opponents more than 300 yards only once. Phil Simms, who missed two games with a sprained ankle will be back at quarterback, sending Jeff Hostetler to the bench after directing wins over the Vikings and Cardinals.

In other games: WASHINGTON (4-5) AT PHILADELPHIA (6-3) The Eagles literally stole the first meeting when Wes Hopkins grabbed the ball from Gerald Riggs to set up the winning touchdown. But these are different teams now. The Redskins, 11-14 since their Super Bowl victory two years ago, may have hit a new low last week by losing 13-3 at home to Dallas, the Cowboys' first win of the Jerry Jones-Jimmy Johnson era. Joe Gibbs blames himself although injuries have played a part offensive linemen Mark May, Russ Grimm and Jim Lachey may all be out leaving Doug Williams, in his second start at quarterback, vulnerable to Reggie White and friends. ATLANTA (M) AT SAN FRANCISCO (8-1) Is this letdown week for the 49ers? The Falcons won at Candlestick 34-17 last year after San Francisco had opened with two straight wins on the road.

The 49ers looked so good Monday night that they're getting the same free pass to the Super Bowl that the Vikings got after they traded for Herschel Walker a month ago. Monday night winners this year are 7-1 the week after and Joe Montana, who missed two weeks with a knee injury, looks like well Joe Montana. CLEVELAND (6-3) AT SEATTLE (4-5) The Browns are suddenly in first place in the AFC Central and playing like they want to stay there. After two losses in which they scored 17 points, they've won three straight, scoring 97 as rookie Eric Metcalf has emerged as runner, receiver, kick returner and passer and Bernie Kosar has completed 54 of his last 70 passes for 707 yards. So coach Bud Carson, whose province is defense, is now praising the offensive staff he was criticizing three weeks ago.

"They've brought this offense along to a point now where we're not limping in there, where if we let down defensively, our offense finds a way to win," he says. INDIANAPOLIS (4-5) AT Bl'FFALO (6-3) A television poll last week indicated Buffalo fans prefer Frank Reich (3-0 as a starting quarterback) to Jim Kelly (3-3). However, the defense was more to blame for the 30-28 loss in Atlanta than Kelly, who was 17 of 22 for 231 yards in his return from a shoulder injury. Injuries are also hurting the Colts, who left Eric Dickerson on the sidelines with a sore hamstring in their 19-13 loss in Miami. He may sit out again this week along with quarterback Jack Trudeau, who has a broken finger on his left hand Don Strock or Tom Ramsey would replace him.

MINNESOTA (6-3) AT TAMPA BAY (3-6) The. Vikings are 3-1 in the Herschel Walker era but they're struggling on offense in particular and offensive coordinator Boo Schnelker is hearing it both from the media and the fans. Walker will probably play more now that fullback Alfred Anderson is out for three weeks with a sprained arch. A month ago, the Bucs were talking playoffs after beating the Bears. Four straight losses later, they look like the same old Bucs Vinnv Testaverde, who set an NFL record with 35 interceptions last year, threw four against Cleveland last week, two returned for touchdowns.

"There's no use crying like a baby," says comerback Rod Jones. "This isn a negative team. We'll be back." DENVER (7-2) AT KANSAS CITY (4-5) Arrowhead Stadium has never been the easiest of places for the Broncos, who beat the Chiefs 34-20 in Denver on opening day. Despite a generally better record this decade, the Broncos have lost eight of 10 games there since 1980. Moreover, the Chiefs are 3-1 at home this year and have a new, somewhat puzzling look.

Not only is Christian Okoye leading the NFL in rushing, but they started Steve Pelluer at quarterback last week in a 20-13 win over Seattle and he ran for almost as many yards (69) as he passed for (80). CHICAGO (5-4) AT PITTSBURGH (4-5) Despite what Mike Ditka says, the Bears' problem isn't replay officials it's offense, particularly up front, where the aging offensive line seems to have lost a little. But Ditka still hasn't lost faith, despite the fact that the Bears are off to their worst start since 1983 and are tied with the Packers, a game behind Minnesota. "It's still in our hands, not Minnesota's hands," he said. "All those people still have to dance through here." First he has to dance through Pittsburgh, which is 4-3 since its horrendous Predict the next big snowfall after Nov.

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