When the Rams Really Needed It, Offense Was Nowhere to Be Found

In this, the strangest of Rams seasons, the big question still looms:

Excuse me, has anyone seen an offense around here?

Sure, Dieter Brock passed himself silly Sunday against the world champion San Francisco 49ers, completing 35 of 51 passes, for 344 yards. But about 50 of those passes came in what you might call garbage time.

You can throw the stats out the window in this one. Don’t jump out after ‘em, though. The Rams are still 7-1.

But that offense . In the first half, the Rams’ six drives ended this way: punt, punt, punt, punt, fumble by Brock, and missed semi-desperation field goal.

The second half was a brisk intersquad scrimmage.

I know, here I am, kicking the Rams when they’re down. But if you kick ‘em when they’re up, you risk pulling a groin muscle.

The fact is, the Rams have Super Bowl aspirations, but an offense that won’t take you to the Potato Bowl.

The temptation is to blame Brock, because he’s the quarterback. Even when the Rams were 7-0, Brock was the only 7-0 quarterback in NFL history whose coach rallied to his public defense.

Brock, the 34-year-old rookie from the Canadian League, came to Los Angeles with heavy hype. Ram owner Georgia Frontiere admired his muscular arms, and Coach John Robinson talked the new guy up pretty good.

The Ram press guide says Dieter “has a bazooka arm, quick feet and is fiercely competitive.”

There were heavy expectations, so far unfulfilled. The bazooka arm has been employed mostly to throw short popgun passes and the quick feet seem to be slowed down somewhat by the body they are attached to.

“There was talk early about me having a strong arm,” Brock said Sunday. “And I guess they (the fans) were expecting to see a lot of bombs. I think I’ve been reading what’s there and taking the underneath stuff, and I think that’s what my job is.”

Certainly nobody on the Rams is going to criticize Brock, a real likable guy who wears scuffed-up cowboy boots and doesn’t have a pretentious bone in his body.

When the media crowded around his locker Sunday, Brock never lost his cool.

“I think there were a couple times when I misread some coverages,” he said. “But overall I think I knew what they were doing.”

Lew Erber, the Rams’ wide receiver coach, is very high on Brock. Erber has worked with quarterbacks such as Tony Eason, Kenny Stabler, Steve Bartkowski and Jim Plunkett.

“He’s on the top of his game and as much into his game as any of them,” Erber said. “He’s a brilliant kid. In meetings, he never takes a note, but never misses anything.

“Rookie mistakes? Dieter is definitely not making rookie mistakes.”

That’s good, since Brock is 34 years old.

“He’s 34 years old but you have to understand this: Kenny Stabler at 34 looked more like me,” the 51-year-old Erber said. “Dieter Brock is 34 going on 24. I’ve never seen anyone throw like he can, as far as having something on the ball. I warm him up before the game, and I’ve got to go get the receivers, I can’t handle his throws.”

The only criticism Erber mentioned was, “Dieter hugs it. We want him to anticipate more (throw to spots before receivers make their cuts), and he relies too much on arm strength. He wants the guy to be open before he throws.”

Brock has some other obvious limitations. When one Ram official heard Brock had been sacked more than 70 times last season in Canada, he described Dieter as “one tough cookie.”

Maybe the official should have said “one slow cookie.” Dieter is not real mobile, and the 49ers have a cookie-monster defense.

At least twice in the first half, under pressure, Brock missed guys wide open in the end zone. But Montana has probably done that once or twice in his career, too.

Anyway, if Dieter is doing what the Rams expect him to do, and pretty much what he expects himself to do, then maybe the problem is larger.

The mystery becomes not whether Dieter Brock is an NFL quarterback, although the jury is still out, but whether the Rams have a Super Bowl offense.

Sunday, as the Rams watched Joe Montana frolic on the Anaheim Stadium turf, some of them must have said to themselves, “So this is football.”

The 49ers throw short stuff, but move the ball. Of course, it helps when you dump off five-yard passes to your running backs and they turn ‘em into 73-yard bombs, as Roger (The Refrigerator) Craig did.

Still, this is the kind of team you have to beat to win championships. So here we are, halfway through the season, and a lot of intriguing questions remain to be answered, such as:

--Should the Rams, like Larry Holmes, have retired with an undefeated record?

--If Brock has a bazooka for an arm, why don’t the coaches ever let him air it out?

--Next time the 49ers come to town, can the Rams switch the game to Cal State Fullerton, or some site where the 49ers don’t feel so doggone comfortable?

--Where the heck is that offense? Don’t you need one to get in the Super Bowl?