Brown and Dickerson Run Wild : Kickoff Returns Help Rams Win

The way Ron Brown and Eric Dickerson ran Sunday, the devil or the San Francisco 49ers must have been after them.

Brown returned kickoffs 98 and 86 yards for touchdowns and caught a 39-yard pass from Dieter Brock for another, while Dickerson broke out of his two-month lethargy with 150 yards rushing and a touchdown to make the Green Bay Packers 34-17 victims of a hit-and-run incident at Anaheim.

The result boosted the Rams’ lead in the NFC West to 2 1/2 games with four remaining, pending the result of the 49ers’ game with Seattle tonight at Candlestick Park. The Rams (9-3) are now assured that they will go to San Francisco (6-5) for the Dec. 9 rematch alone in first place in the NFL West, although they must win at New Orleans next Sunday to assure themselves of coming home that way.

Suddenly, the doom and gloom of an imminent collapse after losing two straight games and three of the last four was blown away, along with forecasts of heavy rain that limited the crowd to 52,710, with 9,880 no-shows. After the first half a drizzle dried up and, for the most part, so did the Packers’ offense.

Given a fast track, Brown and Dickerson were more than the Packers (5-7) could handle.

Lynn Dickey’s passing and some Ram breakdowns on offense and defense allowed Green Bay to overcome Brown’s returns and take a 17-14 lead on Dickey’s 21-yard pass to All-Pro James Lofton after 6:07 of the third quarter.

But the Rams scored on their next three possessions while the defense shut down the Packers.

The Ram defense recorded five sacks--two by Mike Wilcher one each by Reggie Doss, Mel Owens and Gary Jeter--and twice snuffed Packer drives on third-and-short yardage.

Coach John Robinson said: “The big news for us was that our offense began to look like our offense, instead of something from I don’t know where. It was a solid performance by us.”

It may have been Brock’s best day as a Ram. The 34-year-old Canadian Football League refugee completed 15 of 19 passes, including two drops, for a modest 150 yards, with no interceptions.

“Everybody played with more confidence today,” Brock said.

His best play was the touchdown to Brown, who caught five passes for 87 yards.

Brock said: “I called an audible. They were shifting their safeties over to the right. It’s an automatic quick slant when we audible to it.”

Brown responded to the call and darted inside on cornerback Tim Lewis, who slipped to his knees on the wet grass. All Brown had to do was catch the ball and do what he does best the rest of the way: run.

That put the Packers away, 28-17, leaving Mike Lansford to mop up with field goals from 43 and 32 yards.

The Rams’ revived offense included a new touch: tight end David Hill lined up in front of Dickerson as the short man in an I-formation, with three wide receivers. They call the formation “Stack,” and Hill denied it’s a spinoff on the “Refrigerator” craze.

“There aren’t any plays for me to run the ball,” Hill said.

Instead, the 260-pound veteran can be a lead blocker for his good buddy Dickerson, offer pass protection for Brock or peel out as a receiver.

“We put it in for Atlanta (last week) but we got so far behind so fast we weren’t able to use it,” Hill said. “With three wide receivers and me in the backfield, we can run as well as throw the ball.”

Dickerson said: “It spreads the defense. They don’t know what we’re gonna do. Sometimes they were still trying to shift when we snapped the ball.”

But Dickerson scored his 10th touchdown on a more conventional power-draw play of 14 yards. Hill lined up at right tight end and crushed two Packer linebackers to the inside as another linebacker, John Anderson, went after Brock’s pass fake and let Dickerson run right past him on the delay.

Hill: “Eric said on the sideline, ‘Boy, I haven’t seen a hole like that since the Seattle game.’ ”

Robinson went over to Dickerson at the bench, where they exchanged a handshake and a laugh.

“I called him ‘Mr. December,’ ” Robinson said.

Dickerson back in form would certainly make it a better month for the Rams in their drive toward the playoffs. His performance (31 carries for 150 yards) equaled his effort at Seattle when he returned from his holdout two months ago, but he hadn’t been close since.

His longest run Sunday was only 15 yards, but he ran with his old bounce, assisted by better blocking.

Hill’s only complaint was: “I think my neck is about an inch shorter (from ramming into people).

“There’s definitely something that we’ve been missing offensively, especially in the third quarter when we had those long drives. We were being the aggressors, instead of worrying about why this or that play wasn’t working.”

But it took the Rams a while Sunday to get that attitude rolling again. A dropped pass by Henry Ellard and consecutive holding calls against Kent Hill and Irv Pankey aborted one promising drive, and Dickerson’s lost fumble killed another--in fact, set the Packers off on a tying 52-yard push capped by Dickey’s 15-yard pass to tight end Paul Coffman.

Meanwhile, all the Rams had going for them was Brown’s kickoff returns, which earned him the game ball.

The Olympic sprinter opened the game by exploding 98 yards along the right sideline. He swerved around the wedge at the 25, ran past the last-chance lunge of kicker Al Del Greco and was gone, just like that.

After the Packers tied the game early in the second quarter, Brown answered with an 86-yard burst, crossing from right to left behind a wall of blocks, the last by Tony Slaton.

After that, the Packers tried to kick off to Charles White, and they gave him a squib kick to handle.

Lansford also missed two field goals, the first misfire allowing the Packers to close to 14-10 at halftime on a 38-yard kick by Del Greco. The Rams seemed to have that drive stopped when safety Johnnie Johnson made a diving interception, but Jeter was called for lining up offside.

The Packers then took the second-half kickoff 91 yards in 12 plays to grab the lead, 17-14. Dickey caught the Rams in an all-out blitz, leaving rookie Jerry Gray to cover Lofton, who turned Gray inside and caught the ball all alone in the corner of the end zone.

A questionable call helped that drive along. Cornerback Gary Green was cited for pass interference against Phil Epps, although he and Robinson protested that linebacker Carl Ekern had tipped the ball.

“After the ball is tipped, there can be no interference,” Green said.

But the Packers never came close to scoring again. They had beaten the Rams each of the last three years at Milwaukee but are 0-9 against them in California, having not beaten them here since Vince Lombardi was the coach in 1966.

Ekern said: “That’s the kind of team effort you want, when the offense takes control of the game. It makes it easier on defense when the (opponents’) offense becomes more predictable.”

Dickerson even caught one pass for six yards after reminding everyone last week that he was still an eligible receiver.

“John (Robinson) had talked about throwing to the backs when we’re open,” Dickerson said. “We feel like we’re in the offense when they throw to us.”

But running is still more fun.

“You give me a place to run and I can do it from there,” he said.

“One thing that people need to realize, when things go so well you kind of get used to it. Y’all have got spoiled with the 170, the 180, 200 yards. That is not easy. You’re playing against professionals, and they make adjustments and they stop us, and they stopped us very well for the last month and a half.

“I think I’ve learned how to appreciate things more when things go tough and then they go good again, ‘cause things were kind of easy for me the first two years.”

For a few minutes Sunday, Dickerson was having his best game of the season with 155 yards, but he lost four and five yards and gained four on his last three attempts of the day, all of which distressed him little.

“As long as we win, I don’t care,” he said.