Ram Notebook : L.A. Isn’t Left Hanging Against Vikings : Minnesota Puts Some Drama and Excitement Into 13-10 Game
John Robinson hadn’t had much time to let the Rams’ last-second victory sink in when he met the press after Sunday’s 13-10 win over Minnesota. And the first thing that came to mind was a poster he’d seen recently.
“You know that picture of the little cat hanging by his claws that says, ‘No sweat, baby’?” he said. “That was us today, hanging by our fingernails. But that’s what this game is supposed to be all about, drama and excitement at the end.”
Someone asked Viking quarterback Tommy Kramer if he could hear the signals above the crowd noise when Minnesota was deep in Ram territory late in the game.
“I could hear the signals . . . I was calling them.”
The Rams saw a bunch of Mularkey on Sunday. Viking receiver Mike Mularkey, that is. The second-string tight end was one of seven Minnesota players who caught passes against the Rams. Mularkey had four catches for 37 yards, including a key 23-yard reception that led to Jan Stenerud’s 24-yard field goal in the fourth quarter, which cut the Rams’ lead to 13-10.
Cornerback Gary Green says the difference in this year’s Ram defense is diversification.
“It’s basically the same people, but we’re challenging the receivers more and we’re in man coverage more,” he said. “Last year, we played zone 90% of the time. Today, we were in man-to-man 60% and we blitzed both the outside linebackers and the safeties a lot.”
That’s not exactly the way the Vikings saw it.
“The Rams run the same basic format on defense,” running back Darrin Nelson said. “But they don’t make mistakes.”
Added Kramer: “L.A. plays basic stuff. They don’t have guys out of place and they don’t make mistakes. They just play basic vanilla defense.”
Sunday, it was more like rocky road for the Vikings.
Ram quarterback Dieter Brock explained why the Ram offense went so quiet after posting a 13-0 lead.
“We weren’t on the field very much in the second half,” he said.
Brock, who completed 14 of 20 passes, added that “we didn’t really throw the ball well. They played us in a defense that was different from what Atlanta used last week, and we didn’t spend much time on it this week. We more went back to basics.
“Some of the time we had only two guys out in the pattern, and if you can’t get the ball to a wide receiver you have to dump it off.”
The Vikings lost their best long-ball threat, Anthony Carter, early in the fourth quarter.
Carter, shut out for the day, pulled a hamstring running a deep route and never returned.
On the drive leading to Minnesota’s only touchdown, Kramer fumbled when sacked by Mike Wilcher but Nelson picked it up and ran 15 yards. There was some thought that the ball should have been ruled dead because Kramer was in Wilcher’s grasp.
This comment from Bud Brubaker, the NFL observer in the press box:
“It’s just a statistical point, but to be a sack you have to be down, and if you’re down it’s not a fumble.”
In other words, the officials on the field didn’t think it was a sack.
“I thought he was dead (down),” Wilcher said. “I didn’t even know the ball came out.”
Robinson was asked if he considered calling time out during the Vikings’ final drive to leave time for the Rams to come back and score.
“No,” he said. “Once they were running the ball you wanted to let the clock run down and take away their number of options.”
Compiled by Times Staff Writers Chris Dufresne, Rich Roberts and John Weyler