Rams Lose Again, 30-14, and No One Can Explain Why
Anyone notice that the Rams haven’t won a game since quarterback Dieter Brock had a kidney stone removed?
If you don’t like that theory, maybe it’s Halley’s Comet. The Rams had no better explanation for Sunday’s 30-14 loss to the Falcons, who hadn’t beaten anyone but another sorry team, the New Orleans Saints, this season.
They would prefer to believe they’re bedeviled by strange forces, which is easier than facing the possibility that they aren’t as good as a 7-0 start led people to believe. After losing three of their last four, they are 8-3 and staggering.
Now the Rams have the San Francisco 49ers (6-5) closing in--only two games behind after Sunday’s 31-3 rout of Kansas City, with a Monday night showdown at Candlestick Park on Dec. 9.
A solo trumpeter among the Falcons’ 29,960 hardcore fans made a statement after tireless Gerald Riggs buried the Rams’ comeback hopes with his third touchdown at the end. He played “Taps.”
Dennis Harrah, the right guard and a team captain, confessed to “playing scared a little.”
Are the Rams just another disposable title contender? Are their collars starting to shrink?
“We’ll find out next week,” Coach John Robinson said. “Part of being a champion is to be able to keep it going.”
The Rams return home to Anaheim to play the Green Bay Packers (5-6), who trashed the Saints, 38-14, Sunday. The Falcons go to Chicago to play the Bears, which may be asking too much of them.
Ram safety Johnnie Johnson said: “We’re not going to panic. We just have to sit down and look at ourselves.”
Fumbles by wide receiver Ron Brown after a pass reception and by Charles White on a kickoff return boosted the Falcons to a 10-0 lead in the first six minutes, and Riggs ran through the Rams’ proud defense as nobody had this season: a club record 41 rushes for 123 yards to take over the National Football League rushing lead from the Jets’ Freeman McNeil, 1,138 to 1,093.
Riggs also caught five passes for 16 yards, and the Rams’ defense that led the league in takeaways received only one turnover, a fumble by defensive tackle Mike Pitts, who had intercepted a pass. Instead, the Falcons took the ball away from the takers.
Now try another switch. The Falcons’ defense had been violated more than any other in the league, allowing 307 points in the previous 10 games. Their end zone looked like a plowed field.
Against this moveable force, the Rams had season lows of 9 first downs, 45 yards rushing and 177 total net yards, but there’s an easy explanation for that. They had the ball for only 42 plays--four fewer than Riggs, who also had five pass receptions for 16 yards. The Rams had possession for only 16 minutes, and sometimes when the Falcons didn’t have the ball, the Rams gave it to them with three fumbles and two interceptions.
It was pretty ugly, all right--20-0 before the Rams even crossed midfield and 23-0 before they broke the shutout with both of their touchdowns early in the last quarter.
“I guess we weren’t ready to play,” Brock said, echoing the common comment in the Rams’ dressing room.
Brock, who said the five-inch incision in his right groin “didn’t bother me too bad,” completed 11 of 23 passes for 157 yards and a 43-yard touchdown play to Brown. The Olympic sprinter caught the ball on a slant between the safeties at the 32, then turned upfield and ran away.
That followed a one-yard scoring dive by Eric Dickerson that was set up by a 28-yard, end-zone pass interference call--Falcon safety Tiger Greene on Ram receiver Bobby Duckworth.
Oh, yeah, Dickerson. The league’s single-season rushing record setter in ’84 has almost become an afterthought in ’85. Again taken out of the offensive game plan when the Rams fell behind, he was given the ball only 11 times for 41 yards to leave him with 685, and the way the Rams are going he may not reach 1,000.
The Rams’ more immediate concern now is their playoff situation. If the Giants (7-3) beat Washington tonight, the Rams will fall out of the home-field advantage because they lost to the Giants, 24-19, a week earlier.
It could be a cold New Year, even if they make it past Christmas.
What is puzzling is that the Rams entered and left the stadium with apparently superior forces, got their share of breaks and still were whipped soundly.
The Falcons opened with a second-year free agent, Dave Archer, at quarterback and only two members of last year’s offensive line in place, then lost veteran tackle Mike Kenn on their second series. He is gone for the season after tearing three ligaments in his right knee.
So is rookie punter Rick Donnelly, who led the league in net punting average (37.6 yards) before hurting his left knee when he stopped Henry Ellard on a 32-yard return preceding Brock’s scoring throw to Brown.
The Rams, trailing 23-14, tried to take advantage of Donnelly’s loss by putting an all-out rush on his replacement, kicker Mick Luckhurst, but they couldn’t even do that right. When the Falcons had to punt from their own 15-yard line. Reserve linebacker Mark Jerue broke through the middle and missed the ball but got Luckhurst.
The ensuing roughing-the-kicker penalty allowed the Falcons to keep the ball and sustain a 16-play, 7-minute drive to the clinching touchdown by Riggs.
Jerue said: “I was just supposed to be a decoy, but I got through and went by the ball, actually. He was a left-footed kicker and my momentum took me to my left. I could’t change direction in time.”
The Rams’ option was to let Luckhurst punt, and chances are they would have taken over on the Falcons’ side of the 50 with 9:25 remaining--plenty of time to score twice and pull out a win.
“Sure, but that’s second-guessing yourself,” special teams coach Gil Haskell said. “And we had it (the block). He’s a new kicker and we tried to put pressure on him. We did what we thought was right.”
Luckhurst, a former rugby player from England, also contributed by kicking three field goals from 39, 27 and 38 yards. He missed another chance when Archer, his holder, bobbled the snap.
“We just got our butts kicked by a club that was very ready to play,” Robinson said. “We hadn’t been a ball club where we make huge errors like that. The trick in this league is you have to come prepared every week.”
Cornerback LeRoy Irvin said: “Riggs simply controlled the game.”
Linebacker Mel Owens: “Every team’s good in the NFL, but a team with a poor record . . . if you give ‘em some life and they’re home and get a feeling they can win, it’s hard to beat ‘em.”
Falcon Coach Dan Henning said: “We played hard, and sometimes enthusiasm is the number one item.”
Harrah, who thought he had experienced all ranges of emotion during his 11 seasons, was baffled by a new one.
“From the start of the game--and I don’t know how it got in there--I felt I was playing scared a little,” he said. “It was a weird feeling, and I don’t have any explanation for it.
“At halftime I was sick. I felt sick to my stomach. We weren’t doing anything right. Nothing was going right. I was just disgusted with myself. I tried to kick myself in the butt. I wish I could explain it, because Lord knows I’m not scared of any human being.
“How can any man not be ready to play this week. I was ready to come down here and play, and we just stunk up the field.”
Harrah thought it was a temporary condition, although he wasn’t sure how to treat it.
“It’s not chronic to me, and I don’t think it’s chronic to this football team. There’s no reason to be scared of anything.”