UO quarterbacks illustrate how fickle pro sports can be.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

STRANGE,

THE TWISTS careers can take in sports, because talent isn't always

the only deciding factor. There's timing, there's place, there's health, there's fate.

Consider three former Oregon quarterbacks.

Joey Harrington and Akili Smith were first-round picks in the NFL, each taken with the No. 3 pick; they signed contracts worth millions. A.J. Feeley, who backed up Smith at Oregon, started for half a season, then backed up Harrington, was a fifth-round pick, his hold on a job so tenuous that earlier this season he was actually cut by the Philadelphia Eagles and placed on waivers before being re-signed to their practice squad.

Any team could have claimed him.

This weekend, two of the former Oregon quarterbacks will be in the spotlight, and the third virtually forgotten. Once upon a time, you wouldn't have bet things would turn out this way.

Harrington starts again this morning for Detroit, on national television, in the Lions' traditional Thanksgiving Day home game, this time against the defending Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots.

In his rookie season, he has taken Detroit by storm, given beleaguered Lions' fans a glimmer of hope. He's been on the cover of Sports Illustrated; he didn't worry about a cover jinx, because he was there before his senior year at Oregon, and the Ducks won the Pac-10 and won the Fiesta Bowl.

He's been featured in Cosmopolitan as one of sports' most eligible bachelors. His jersey, that familiar No. 3, is a mega-seller. He's had his struggles, as rookie quarterbacks will have - especially on bad teams, and the Lions are that - but he's evidenced the same leadership and poise that he displayed at Oregon. The Lions won't have a winning year, but Harrington's still a winner.

Feeley starts Sunday, for the Eagles, against the St. Louis Rams.

His is the most improbable story. He's had to battle for a place on the roster as a rookie and again this season. Now, he's on the verge of making his first NFL start - in fact, his first start anywhere since the 1999 season, his junior year at Oregon - because starting quarterback Donovan McNabb suffered a broken ankle two weeks ago, and backup Koy Detmer dislocated his left (non-throwing) elbow Monday night.

How easy it is to forget that when Feeley was a junior at Oregon, and Harrington a sophomore, Feeley won the starting job.

Indeed, Feeley was heck-on-wheels early that season. Then his elbow started hurting, and Oregon's running game got beat up some, and twice in a row Harrington came off the bench and rallied the Ducks to victory.

Like Wally Pipp, the Yankees first baseman who stepped aside for one game for a young kid named Lou Gehrig, Feeley had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, a phenomenon lurking over his shoulder, a quarterback whom the Seattle Times would name the Pac-10's best in the last quarter century.

Now, with a chance to help a team that has a chance to go to the Super Bowl - a team that's 8-3 and leading the NFC East - has fate given Feeley back the break it took away?

"It's kind of weird how the tide has turned," he said, as quoted by ESPN.com's John Clayton. "I usually have been on the other end."

At the end of the line in Cincinnati is Akili Smith, drafted in the same spot as Harrington, No. 3 overall in 1999, when the Bengals picked him ahead of Edgerrin James, Ricky Williams and Daunte Culpepper.

Smith was a training camp holdout (Harrington got to camp on time) who's only 3-14 as an NFL starter.

He's had two major injuries; certainly Harrington's rookie year would have been a much different story if, for example, he hadn't survived September healthy.

When Smith got hist last start for the woeful Bengals earlier this season, Cincinnati was trounced by Tampa Bay; afterward he was relegated to being the third quarterback again.

"I just need an opportunity," Smith said last month, as quoted by the Cincinnati Enquirer.

"I need to get myself in a situation where I can start in camp somewhere, get comfortable and get going. The only time I had the opportunity here was my second year. And I didn't perform well, and the rest is history."

It's not the kind of history that Smith's college coach, Oregon's Mike Bellotti, expected.

"I'm shocked to this day that Akili Smith is not a successful quarterback on the next level," Bellotti said recently. "I'm at a loss on that one. Akili's the best quarterback I've ever coached, on any level at any time. And I'm talking about the total package of physical skills and mental skills and leadership and the whole thing."

Obviously, not every can't-miss quarterback is a hit in the NFL, immediately or ever. Others, such as Pittsburgh's Tommy Maddox, persevere long enough to get their chance; the same happened with the Rams' Kurt Warner, and he won a Super Bowl ring.

Only one of the former Oregon quarterbacks can do something about his team getting Super Bowl rings this season, and that's the guy who earlier this season didn't even have a team.

Strange, the twists careers can take.