Shula, Dolphins Primed For 1995

Don Shula has two years left on his contract as coach of the Miami Dolphins, but he’s not waiting around for the 1996 season to make a run at his seventh Super Bowl.

Shula and his Dolphins are loading up for 1995. They have added four former No. 1 draft picks - all players in their 20s who started for other teams last season - to a roster that already was one of the most talented in the AFC.

The Dolphins signed Pro Bowl tight end Eric Green away from the Pittsburgh Steelers and wide receiver Randal Hill from the Arizona Cardinals as free agents. They also traded for defensive end Trace Armstrong from the Chicago Bears and cornerback Terrell Buckley from the Green Bay Packers.

Armstrong, 29, led the Bears in sacks last season with 7 1/2 and Buckley, 23, led the Packers in interceptions with five. Neither is expected to start for the Dolphins. Armstrong will be the nickel rusher and Buckley the nickel corner.

Green, however, will start. His arrival, $12 million contract in hand, allowed the Dolphins to swap their older, descending tight end Keith Jackson to the Packers. Green, 27, is a better blocker than Jackson and, at 280 pounds, a more menacing threat on seam routes. He averaged 13.4 yards per catch last season, to Jackson’s 11.4.

The Dolphins also traded incumbent starting wide receiver Mark Ingram to the Packers so they could get recent No. 1 draft pick O.J. McDuffie on the field. Hill, 25, plugs in as the nickel receiver and gives quarterback Dan Marino a speed option with his 4.3-second speed in the 40.

Even without those players, Miami wasn’t that far from a Super Bowl in 1994. The Dolphins lost to the Chargers at San Diego in the AFC semifinals, 22-21, when Miami’s Pete Stoyanovich missed a 48-yard field goal in the closing seconds. The Chargers wound up representing the AFC in the Super Bowl.

The Dolphins lost that playoff game without starting running backs Terry Kirby and Keith Byars, out with knee injuries. Kirby missed the final three months of the season and Byars the final two. Both are expected back by training camp.

The one hit the Dolphins took in free agency was center Jeff Dellenbach, who jumped to New England. But Miami already had his replacement on board in Tim Ruddy, a second-round draft pick in 1994.

The Dolphins are holding up better this off-season than AFC West champion San Diego, which must replace starting safeties Darren Carrington and Stanley Richard, and AFC Central champ Pittsburgh, which must replace Green and Pro Bowl guard Duval Love.

The Dolphins have maintained their seven-player Pro Bowl nucleus of Marino, Byars, Irving Fryar, Richmond Webb, Keith Sims, Jeff Cross and Bryan Cox. On paper, at least in April, they have the best team in the AFC. And Shula has gone to Super Bowls in the past with less.

Mr. Irrelevent no more

The first time Marty Moore heard of Mr. Irrelevant, he was the latest in the long, proud line of Mr. Irrelevants. That was last April, when he won the title annually accorded the final NFL draft pick.

Someone from the Irrelevant Week office in California telephoned to tell Moore he had won an all-expenses-paid trip to Newport Beach simply for being the last player chosen. The New England Patriots had taken the allSoutheastern Conference linebacker from Kentucky with the 222d pick in the draft.

“I thought it was a hoax,” Moore said the other day from his Boston apartment. “But then I thought, ‘What the hell, if somebody wants to pay my way to California for a week, I’ll go.”’

One reception, one news conference, one Disneyland trip, one regatta, one “Lowsman” Trophy banquet, and one golf tournament later - all in his honor - Moore found out that being Mr. Irrelevant is not so, well, irrelevant.

“Put it this way: You’d come back to your room for two hours, catch a little nap, and you’d go back out again,” said Moore, who not only stuck with the Patriots last year, but started five games.

Moore’s successor will be named two weeks from Monday, the final day of the NFL draft. Paul Salata, the former NFL and CFL wide receiver who is the founder of Irrelevant Week, will be in New York to announce the final pick.

Only six of the 19 Mr. Irrelevants have gone on to make NFL rosters. Since the draft was shortened from 12 rounds to seven in 1992, however, two of the last three Mr. Irrelevants - Moore and center Matt Elliott, now with Carolina - made the cut.

Salata was sitting around with a couple of friends one day in 1976 when he got the idea that honoring the last player drafted would be a fun way to raise money for charity.

Kelvin Kirk, a wide receiver from the University of Dayton, was the 334th and last chosen that year.

The award now carries a certain measure of prestige. ESPN2 will carry the announcement of this year’s Mr. Irrelevant live.

Recently, Mr. Irrelevants from other walks of life have been invited to the bash. In 1991, the last soldier off the last plane back from Operation Desert Storm came to Irrelevant Week. Last year, the person who ranked last in the graduating class at the Naval Academy was flown to California.

“They look things over, and they see a carload of gifts - of nice gifts they can use - and they’ll say, ‘Hey, this is pretty nice,”’ Salata said. “It’s really not a joke or an embarrassment - even though it could be. Usually, they’ll look things over and say, ‘Hey, the first pick isn’t doing as well as I am.”’

Amigo once again?

Two years after saying adios to Denver, former Broncos wide receiver Vance Johnson may be catching passes from quarterback John Elway in 1995.

Johnson, a member of Denver’s self-promoting “Three Amigos” receiving corps from 1985 to 1993, ran a 4.41-second 40-yard dash during a workout Friday at Broncos headquarters.

By comparison, highly touted Colorado receiver Michael Westbrook ran a 4.49 on artificial turf in February. Johnson’s time came on a slower natural grass surface.

“Not bad for an old man,” the 32-year-old Johnson said after the second of two 40-yard sprints. His other time was 4.43 seconds.

Denver coach Mike Shanahan was in San Francisco and unavailable for comment.

“Some players are made for certain teams and I was made to be a Bronco,” Johnson said. “If I have to play somewhere else, I will. But Colorado’s my life and my home. And I know John Elway. I know what he needs.”

Elway and the Broncos need a fourth wide receiver. In addition to Johnson, they have interviewed Minnesota’s Anthony Carter and Indianapolis’ Odessa Turner.

Persuasive speaker

Keith Jackson was thinking about retiring after he was traded from Miami to the Packers, but a certain former (and future) teammate who stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 300 pounds apparently helped the tight end change his mind.

“What we had was a private conversation,” Reggie White told the Milwaukee Sentinel. “It was a good talk. He’ll play.”

Jackson and White were teammates in Philadelphia.

Upward mobility

Become a free agent, earn twice the money. According to figures released last week by the NFL Players Association, the 200-plus free agents who have signed will make an average annual salary of $1.144 million. Unrestricted free agents who have signed new contracts this year made an average of slightly more than $520,000 last year, and unrestricted free agents who signed with new teams made slightly under $550,000 last year.

Will baseball rescue Niners?

The 49ers were delighted to see the end of the baseball strike. They desperately want to re-sign cornerback Deion Sanders, the rap star who also plays center field for the Reds, but they probably would not have had enough room under the salary cap to offer him a full season’s salary - which Sanders would have asked for, had the strike wiped out the baseball season.

Where are they now?

Former longtime quarterback Don Strock has surfaced in the World League as the quarterbacks coach of the Rhein Fire, which opens its season today against those mighty Scottish Claymores.

His starting quarterback is none other than Gino Torretta.