As desperate as NFL teams are for up-and-coming quarterbacks - Bobby Hoying, selected in the third round by the Eagles, was one of only eight picked in this year's draft - could they finally develop some interest in Charlie Ward?
The 1993 Heisman Trophy winner, bypassed in the 1994 NFL draft despite leading Florida State to the national championship, has spent the last two seasons playing professional basketball with the New York Knicks. Though he's still under contract to the Knicks, Ward, 25, left the door open when asked recently if he had given up on the idea of changing sports."I know I can play in the NFL," he said.
Ward has a fan in Dick Daniels, the Eagles' director of football operations. The Eagles expect newcomer Ty Detmer to battle incumbent Rodney Peete for the quarterback job, with Hoying being groomed for the future. Because Ward is under contract to another team, Daniels stopped short of saying whether the Eagles would have any interest if Ward were available.
But he remembered him as a prospect.
"I think Charlie has ability and is very capable," Daniels said. "He's well thought of by a lot of teams, by any team that runs a West Coast offense. It wouldn't be so much about his capabilities as it would be how long you'd expect it to take him to develop and give indications he could play on a higher level."
Of the 254 players drafted in April, only eight were quarterbacks, a record low. Moreover, while the quarterback supply is decreasing, the demand is increasing because of expansion and injuries.
As a result, there aren't enough quality quarterbacks to go around, and several teams, including defending AFC champion Pittsburgh, are scrambling to find a starter in whom they can be confident.
"There's no way for me to compare him to what's available today because I'm not out there scouting anymore, but when he was coming out, I liked him a lot," Joe Woolley said of Ward. Woolley, an assistant general manager with the Arizona Cardinals, was the Eagles' director of player personnel when Ward was a college senior.
Not that Ward's basketball career has been a dud: He came on strong at the end of this season and proved he belonged in the NBA after being the 26th pick in the first round of the 1994 draft.
Two months earlier, NFL teams had passed on him. Some weren't convinced he was committed to football, and others were turned off by his salary demands.
"Charlie said he wouldn't play football unless he was drafted in a certain round, and teams took that as negative and he went to basketball," Daniels said. "If he'd like to play (in the NFL), then he has to do something."
Teams also were said to have been apprehensive about Ward's size. The Knicks listed him at 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds, but he appears to be closer to 6-0.
"There were questions about him in '94, and there would be more questions now," said Ozzie Newsome, the Baltimore Ravens' director of football operations. "He'd have a lot of work to do to make it in the NFL, especially after not playing for two years."
As a senior at Florida State, Ward won the Heisman Trophy after com pleting 264 of 380 passes (69.5 percent) for 3,032 yards and 27 touchdowns. His strengths were his feet and his arm. He was a playmaker, and he believes he could make plays in the NFL.
"They felt I wasn't interested in playing football, which wasn't the case," Ward said. "I went to the combine, I got my physical, and I played in the all-star games. It was nothing that I didn't do.
"I didn't go because of all the political reasons behind why they didn't draft me. I was a black quarterback, and I wasn't the prototype."
Ward has three more seasons on his Knicks contract at about $1 million a year. Though an NFL quarterback can earn more than a backup NBA point guard, Ward said money wouldn't be the factor that would prompt him to seek a job in the NFL.
"You never say never, but my thing is not financial. Maybe it was at the beginning, at draft time. But right now I'm enjoying being with the Knicks, and I'm improving."
LIKE FATHER . . .: On Father's Day, it's interesting to note that there have been 94 father-son combinations in the NFL. Should rookie cornerback Anthony Dorsett make the Houston Oilers' roster this summer, he would join his father, Hall of Fame running back Tony Dorsett, in a bit of rare NFL folklore.
Only twice has a father-son duo had a Hall of Fame connection. Hall of Fame linebacker Bobby Bell's son, Bobby Jr., played in the NFL in 1984 and 1987. Hall of Fame guard John Hannah's father, Herb, played in the league in 1951.
Two others are trying to make the NFL this summer as sons of former players: running back Kantroy Barber of the New England Patriots (son of Rudy Barber, a former linebacker with the Miami Dolphins) and defensive end Brady Smith of the New Orleans Saints (son of Stephen Smith, an offensive tackle who played with several clubs, including the Eagles from 1971 to '74).
QUICK HITS: When Cincinnati Bengals coach David Shula complained about Dan Wilkinson's showing up for the club's first minicamp out of shape at 335 pounds, Wilkinson took offense and left. He remained absent again last week at the Bengals' second voluntary camp. Shula wants Wilkinson to trim down to 310. . . . Johnny Mitchell, the former New York Jets tight end whom the Eagles made a whole-hearted attempt to sign before the draft, is talking to the Bengals. Mitchell also fired his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, after Rosenhaus told him not to pursue a job with the Miami Dolphins. Rosenhaus happens to represent Dolphins tight end Eric Green - no favorite of Jimmy Johnson's - whom Mitchell would have to beat out for a job. Mitchell and Johnson have held discussions.