Boselli Set to Challenge Thomas
Sept. 10, 1998
They never played together at Southern Cal, but fellow Trojans Tony Boselli and Pat Harlow are members of the same fraternity, nonetheless.
And that, Boselli hopes, is as far as the comparison goes.
Boselli was watching his TV with great interest last Sunday night when Harlow, the Raiders' left tackle, was burned six times by Kansas City's Derrick Thomas, who fell only one sack short of his own single-game NFL record in Kansas City's 28-8 kicking of Oakland.
"I know Pat Harlow and I felt bad for him," Boselli said. "He was put in a tough situation -- down in the game (20-0), on the road and facing Derrick Thomas at the top of his game."
Boselli has more than college ties binding him to Harlow. The Jaguars' star left tackle also must block Thomas at noon Sunday when the Chiefs travel to Jacksonville for a battle of two of the AFC's top contenders.
Don't feel sorry for Boselli.
Chiefs coach Marty Schottenheimer calls the physically imposing (6-foot-7, 329-pound) fourth year player the best left tackle in the NFL. That opinion is almost universal.
Boselli last year was named to the All-Pro teams picked by The Associated Press, the Pro Football Writers of America and The Sporting News.
"He's definitely one of the best, if not the best, tackle in the league," agreed Thomas, who added to his own list of awards Wednesday by winning his eighth NFL Defensive Player of the Week designation.
"He's got all the tools -- speed, ability, agility," Thomas added. "The important thing against him is to keep the pressure on and be ready to capitalize if he ever does make a mistake. You know it's not going to happen very often, but you just keep chipping away and let the cards fall where they may."
In a mano-a-mano matchup with Thomas, Boselli is more than up to the task. But he'll also have some things working for him that Harlow didn't. Foremost among them, he won't have 78,000 Chiefs fans imploring Thomas to wreak havoc on every play.
"We'll be able to hear the snap count here, which is always nice," Boselli said of playing at home. "And we don't plan on turning the ball over three quick times and letting them jump on us (as Oakland did).
"Oakland put themselves in a tough situation in that game. It was like when a shark smells blood in the water. Those Kansas City defensive players smelled blood, and they became relentless."
Put Thomas at the head of the relentless list. "He looks," Boselli said, "like a man on a mission."
Inspired by watching Mark McGwire's run at baseball immortality, Thomas is once again dreaming of beating Mark Gastineau's NFL single-season sack record of 22. Getting six in his first game is a McGwire-like start.
"I've been watching McGwire like everyone else and thinking, "Why not me?'" said Thomas, who has in own place in NFL history with two of the three biggest sack days in NFL history.
Thomas laughs when told that Neil Smith, his longtime friend now with Denver, talks about Derrick being on pace for 96 sacks this season. That's a joke, of course, for Thomas knows there won't be many situations like the one he enjoyed last Sunday.
"That game unfolded in a manner you'd love them all to unfold," he said of the Raider game the Chiefs led 17-0 after one Oakland snap. "In reality, it doesn't happen that way much. Hopefully, we can go down there and get ahead and take their crowd out of it and see if we can't create that kind of situation again.
"You have to remember, too, that when something like that happens, you have to shake the hands of 10 other guys," he added. "All those sacks don't come as a product of just your efforts. They come as a product of coverage and the guys in the middle flushing people to you. A lot of things have to happen to have a game of that magnitude."
And making them happen against Boselli in Jacksonville will be especially difficult.
from topeka capital-journal
