Rams’ Youngblood, Ferragamo May Need Off-Season Surgery

The Rams’ season has been over for more than two weeks, but two players still have their game faces on. Surgery may be necessary to fix defensive lineman Jack Youngblood’s back and quarterback Vince Ferragamo’s hand.

Dr. Robert Kerlan, the team physician, said that Youngblood has a herniated disk, complicated by a spur pressing on the sciatic nerve.

Youngblood was injured at Tampa Nov. 25 while playing in his 200th consecutive game, a club record. He made it 201 against New Orleans a week later but took himself out of the game and was unable to play against Houston the following Sunday.

He tried to play at San Francisco and in the wild-card playoff game against the Giants but said his left leg was too weak.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Youngblood said. “It just doesn’t work. They say time cures everything, but at 35 I don’t have much time.”

Youngblood has been treated with anti-inflammatory injections.

“All our treatment has been aimed at reducing the swelling of that nerve,” Kerlan said, adding that when Youngblood was injured, the nerve was squeezed by the “bulging disk and the spur that had been there a long time,” apparently from an old injury.

“I will have to make a decision soon,” Kerlan said of the possible operation. “You don’t want these things to get away from you.”

Kerlan is consulting with Dr. Robert Watkins, a back specialist, on Youngblood’s problem. For Ferragamo, he has a hand specialist who preferred not to have his name revealed.

“He’s been seen once by him and will be seen by him again within a week or two,” Kerlan said. “It will be the hand surgeon that will make the decision (whether to operate).”

Ferragamo suffered a hyperflexion of his right index knuckle and tore a tendon on top of that knuckle while trying to make a tackle after throwing an interception in an exhibition game against Green Bay Aug. 18.

He continued to play but passed poorly, throwing eight interceptions in the first two regular-season games before breaking a bone in his hand at Pittsburgh Sept. 16.

“He kept insisting he was only 5% off and that it didn’t bother him to throw,” Kerlan said, “but once he was out of the lineup (with the broken hand) we made a verification of how extensive the (knuckle) injury was.”

The knuckle still is swollen, Kerlan said, because of “fluid and chronic thickening of the lining of the joint, (although) it’s not nearly as swollen as it was.”

If Ferragamo had played any other position, or if the injury had been to his left hand, there wouldn’t have been a problem.

“We have guys in the pit that don’t miss practice with an injury like this,” Kerlan said. “Some of our players play with casts and other things, but a quarterback can’t do that.”

Ferragamo’s injury leaves the Rams’ quarterback situation unresolved for next season.

“What I’d like to see him do is get back to the point where we can say there’s nothing wrong,” Coach John Robinson said of Ferragamo. “Then you start sorting out the deal between him and Jeff (Kemp). I won’t have a contest (and) I don’t see myself committing to anybody at this point, other than we do know this: We have two quarterbacks who can play.”

With Kemp, the Rams became strongly one-dimensional, with Eric Dickerson running the ball for a National Football League single-season record of 2,105 yards.

“We have to get back to that dynamic type of passing game,” Robinson said, “but if one were critical because we ran the ball too much, they might say Miami passes the ball too much.”

One play Robinson would like to call over--the Rams’ most controversial call of the season--was the run by Dwayne Crutchfield, instead of Dickerson, on second-and-goal against the Giants in the playoffs. It lost three yards and the Rams lost the game.

“I’ve been asked a thousand times why I didn’t get the ball,” Dickerson said recently. “I remember when the play was called in the huddle--’37 Gap.’

“I leaned forward and said, ‘What did you say?’ ‘37 Gap?’ ‘That’s what I thought you said.’ I just stepped back. I knew it wouldn’t work.”

Many people believe Super Bowl XIX will develop into a shootout between Dan Marino and Joe Montana, but Robinson is not so sure.

“I’ll bet it doesn’t,” he said. “I don’t think (the Dolphins) will have as much success throwing deep as they did against Pittsburgh. Neither team will have success deep.

“The 49ers will play a more balanced game. If you said Miami couldn’t throw deep passes and had to go slowly for touchdowns, that puts it in the 49ers’ favor.

“You look at a fast-breaking basketball team and think, ‘Nobody can stop them.’ And then somebody stops ‘em. But maybe (the Dolphins) are that good.”