Tackler

Observing from the sidelines, while one of his best friends is caught in the cross-fire of a controversy he didn't instigate, causes Art Modell to go on the offense. He doesn't believe Al Lerner, like himself a poor kid from Brooklyn, who came up the hard way to become one of America's most respected business leaders, deserves to have his integrity impugned.Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns and frequent visitor to Baltimore, is aware that Lerner has been anointed by Gov.William Donald Schaefer to lead Baltimore's effort to gain a National Football League expansion franchise.

Now you see him, now you don't. Bernard Fitchette, the phantom in cleats.He glides and slides, ducks and darts, dips his hip and gives the defense the slip, this Overlea High quarterback with lightning in his feet."

College Park -- As Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen gears up for his annual four-week recruiting tour, he does so this year with some unexpected holes to plug, as several players - and one coach - have informed him of their decision not to return next season. Among them are starting middle linebacker Wesley Jefferson, who was second on the team with 110 tackles, but has decided to graduate early and pursue a career as a state trooper. Also not returning are fullback Tim Cesa, a former starter whose career was cut short by a series of concussions, and redshirt freshman fullback Chris Gronkowski, who has decided to transfer.

A couple weeks into training camp, Bruce Perry's tenuous hold on Maryland's starting tailback job was slipping away. Ailing hamstrings separated Perry from most of his teammates, relegating him to a pack of injured players who went through a set of grueling calisthenics while the conditioning staff watched. The barrel rolls, performed on artificial turf under a scorching sun, were Perry's breaking point. He pulled off his helmet and, with an anguished face, spewed a river of invective before asking, "What does this have to do with the game?"

Who's the best linebacker in the Atlantic Coast Conference? Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen says it's the Terps' E.J. Henderson, but what he'd really like is to have North Carolina State's Levar Fisher playing along with Henderson. Because if Henderson is No. 1, Fisher is not far behind. "I'd like to have him and E.J. on the same team," Friedgen said. "It'd be a pretty good inside-outside combination." Henderson, a leading candidate for ACC Defensive Player of the Year, and Fisher, last year's winner of that award, will get to watch each other work from opposite sidelines when their teams play Saturday night at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, N.C. With a victory, No. 10 Maryland would clinch the ACC title.

ASHBURN, Va. - The last memory many Washington Redskins fans will have of Ifeanyi Ohalete is of the safety being victimized on a 68-yard touchdown pass by the Carolina Panthers in a preseason game Saturday night. Yesterday, the Redskins cut Ohalete, who started 15 games for them last season, made three interceptions and finished third on the team in tackles. But he had been slipping on the depth chart and was badly beaten by Carolina's Keary Colbert on a third-quarter play in the team's second preseason game.

COLLEGE PARK -- Nick Novak isn't a kicker. He's a football player. Just ask his coach, Maryland special teams coordinator Ray Rychleski. "He thinks he's a tough guy," Rychleski said. "He can't wait to run down on kickoff coverage. He made, I think, three tackles last year for us. He gets his noggin bumped a little bit, but he relishes it." And if you think the Terps discourage that kind of behavior from Novak -- an All-America candidate who might be 190 pounds soaking wet -- you'd be wrong.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Quarterback Mark Brunell did more than anyone to change the course of yesterday's 24-10 victory over the Ravens, but the emotional low point of the game occurred at the end of the first quarter, when the heart of the Ravens' defense hit the ground and began screaming in pain.So middle linebacker Ray Lewis is human, after all.Lewis, who overcame a scary neck injury in his 1997 training camp and went on to lead the NFL in tackles and make the Pro Bowl in only his second season, is about to take a seat on the bench.

TAMPA, Fla. - New York Giants running back Tiki Barber came into the world early and blossomed late. Now, at 25, he's comfortably centered, finding himself at the right place at the right time - again. Barber's first coming-out party was at the University of Virginia, where he used football and all the attention that came with it as a social tool. Now, in New York, he has enjoyed a breakthrough season on the football field and discovered a new sideline, serving in the off-season as the host of radio and television talk shows and as a TV sports anchor.

Just about every other Saturday, Jason Corle puts on his version of the Jenny Jones show.There's some trash talk, some physical contact, and plenty of surprising moves. The episode isn't the option-A makeover, but instead the option-B motif, with its durable title -- "You Dissed Me in High School, But Look At Me Now."The girls didn't laugh at Corle when he was at Southern Regional High School on the New Jersey shore. Nor did bullies necessarily smack him around. It was the college football coaches who bruised his ego, pegging him as small and slow.