Pick a Bell any Bell and stick with him

Van Walker, Special to the News

Published September 12, 2006 at midnight

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Denver’s loss at St. Louis proved three things beyond doubt, one of which is that varsity tryouts at running back shouldn’t continue through Game 1.

The other is that quarterback remains the bigger problem. Frat-house pledges might make poorer decisions than Jake Plummer in a collapsing pocket, but then they have youth and alcohol as excuses.

Plummer, on the other hand, is at least guilty of playing under the influence of weapons-grade stupid. More on him later.

The big question going in Sunday concerned the Denver backfield, and, of course, only among the sunlight-deprived masses that are fantasy football junkies does that question reach Threat Level Orange.

Here’s your answer: Start a Bell. Either Bell. It doesn’t matter. Tatum Bell ran the ball 15 times for 103 yards and was a constant threat to score whenever he got the ball in a broken field situation. Mike Bell rushed 10 times for 58 yards and a TD, in particular showing a cutback that makes grown men look stupid. Both guys looked good in part-time duty.

Pick one of them and give him the football 35 times. Please.

The logic is inescapably simple. One guy gets the reps with the first team. One guy gets better prepared. One guy plays better because he’s in a rhythm (see Jackson, Stephen). Problem one solved.

This has the added benefit of making Jake Plummer smarter by 35 plays a game. Think about it: That’s 35 times that he can’t deny gift-wrapped Providence. That’s 35 times in 60 minutes that he doesn’t have to do anything smarter than turn around, give the ball to a guy named Bell, and stay out of harm’s way. Problem two solved.

This leads us to the third problem: Mike Shanahan.

Shanahan, like most NFL head coaches, is only slightly less paranoid than Tony Soprano, thus he is incapable of thinking in a straight line. He plays the shell game at RB because he thinks that he’s forcing the other guy’s defense to prepare for two backs. Actually, he ends up with two half-prepared backs (think Mike Bell allegedly blocking Leonard Little), which emboldens the rogues on defense to rush the passer with abandon. The result is a jailbreak at the snap, with Jake Plummer freelancing.

And nobody wants Jake Plummer freelancing. The guy threw left-handed (!!) into a crowd, for crying out loud. The mere fact that a Denver running back came down with it should have atheists everywhere searching for a handle on the moment.

(Speaking of Plummer, wasn’t Shanahan supposed to be a quarterback’s coach? Apparently, the only quarterback he could coach was John Elway, and, really, how hard could that have been? Oh, sorry, Dan Reeves . . .)

But I digress.

All three problems are solved in one stroke when Shanahan quits outsmarting himself and anoints one Bell.

Here’s hoping he figures it out before next week.

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