Rams Don’t Have a Prayer, Now Need a Miracle
Despite a 29-3 loss Sunday to the New Orleans Saints--there will be an attempt to explain that later--a glance at the standings in the NFC West shows the Rams one game in front with three to play.
It’s an optical illusion. They are in control of their own destiny like Little Red Riding Hood on her way to Grandma’s house. They are masters of their fate like a Christmas goose.
Guard and captain Dennis Harrah summed it up perfectly: “We’re in first place, and we stink.”
Barring a dramatic turnaround, rack of Ram will be the bill of fare at Candlestick Park a week from tonight.
The San Francisco 49ers have smelled blood since they started nibbling at the Rams’ four-game lead five weeks ago, and now they’re sharpening their utensils to return to first place on national television. What were they thinking, waiting to whip the Redskins later Sunday, as they watched the Saints set a club record by sacking Dieter Brock six times and Jeff Kemp three?
What’s the NFL bag limit on quarterbacks, anyway? Those who thought Joe Theismann’s broken leg was gruesome should be warned.
And don’t turn to Coach John Robinson for reasons why the Rams have fallen from orbit by losing four of their last six games after a 7-0 start. He’s as puzzled as anyone. All he could do was state the obvious.
“We’re really inept as a football team,” he said after Sunday’s spectacle made the day--and maybe the season--for the Saints (5-8) and 44,122 of their faithful in the Superdome. “I was genuinely shocked by it. We’re a team headed in the wrong direction. For some reason, the dynamic freedom we played with earlier has abandoned us. There aren’t any reasons.”
Maybe the Saints’ stunning performance was the product of only one week under their interim coach, Wade Phillips, who did what his father Bum could never do in five tries: beat the Robinson-coached Rams.
Maybe the Rams were unsettled by the unexplained disappearance of wide receiver Bobby Duckworth, who missed the team plane Saturday and turned up, instead, in San Diego.
Or maybe the Rams were rusty because they hadn’t been able to practice in two days because of rain at home Friday and a 1 1/2-hour plane delay in flying to Louisiana the following day.
“None of those things are significant,” Robinson said. “We just got the hell kicked out of us.”
But why should a team on its way into the tank for the 19th successive season suddenly turn killer behind a lame-duck coach and a quarterback, Bobby Hebert, making his third NFL start after three years in the United States Football League?
The Saints played defense like demons, committed no turnovers and Hebert completed 13 of 22 passes for 208 yards and a touchdown.
The Saints took a 6-0 lead in the first quarter on the first two of five field goals by Morten Andersen. The Rams made that stand up by fumbling the ball away three times and throwing it away once--the interception that got Brock yanked early in the final period.
Rescued might be a better word. It must have been a relief for Brock’s parents, who drove all the way from Birmingham for the game.
“It’s not easy playing with your butt pasted to the ground,” Brock said.
The 34-year-old veteran from the Canadian Football League took more sacks than pass completions (5 for 10), and he couldn’t recall the last time he failed to finish a game when he was physically able to play.
Eric Dickerson rushed 16 times for 80 yards but was unable to break a big one. It was the first time the Rams had failed to cross the goal line since a 33-0 loss to the 49ers at Anaheim last season.
The Rams’ offense didn’t see the Saints’ side of the 50-yard line until the game was 26 minutes 20 seconds old and they trailed, 9-0, and that was only because of a 54-yard punt by rookie Dale Hatcher that Vince Newsome downed at the three to put the Saints in a hole.
The Rams’ defense kept them there, and after the punt, the Rams’ offense took possession at the Saint 41. Brock dumped off to Barry Redden for a 15-yard gain to the 20 and Dickerson swept right end for two, but then the wheels fell off again.
Brock failed to see Henry Ellard open in the right side of the end zone so threw left to Tony Hunter, who was unable to hang onto the pass at the five. On third down Brock was sacked by end Frank Warren, his second, leaving Mike Lansford to kick a 41-yard field goal and avert, as it turned out, a shutout.
A comeback from 9-3 wasn’t out of the question as the second half started, but that hope was jarred when Brock was stuffed trying to sneak for a first down on fourth-and-a-foot at the Saints’ 33.
Andersen kicked the score up to 12-3 early in the fourth quarter, and then the Rams’ collapse became complete.
Ron Brown, who returned two kickoffs for touchdowns against Green Bay a week earlier, set the Rams up at their 38 but, on first down, Brock, under pressure, missed Brown over the middle and cornerback Johnnie Poe intercepted.
On the Saints’ second play, Hebert passed 43 yards down the right sideline to Eric Martin, who made a diving, tumbling catch at the goal despite close coverage by Gary Green.
“I lost it in the lights,” Green said. “I read the play all the way--stop and go--and saw the ball coming, but then I lost it in the lights. I didn’t even know what the crowd was screaming about.”
That’s the kind of day it was. A ball lost in the lights, a wide receiver lost back home, a nail, a horseshoe, a battle--a war?
The touchdown following the interception was only part of a series of mishaps that sent the Rams down ingloriously within a span of two minutes.
Kemp replaced Brock and immediately completed a 15-yard pass to Brown but, on second down, he was mugged by linebacker James Haynes and fumbled. First Dickerson and then David Hill tried to recover the ball, but it squirted from under Hill into the arms of Jack Del Rio, and the rookie linebacker from USC galloped 22 yards to make it 26-3.
Hill caught a pass from Kemp on the next series but fumbled when hit by linebacker Rickey Jackson, Del Rio recovering again.
The Saints completed the hat trick the next time the Rams had the ball. Kemp’s 35-yard pass to James McDonald helped them get to the Saints’ 16, but then he was sacked by safety Frank Wattelet, fumbled, and Haynes recovered.
The Saints, fired up with their new self-esteem, wouldn’t even allow the Rams a garbage-time touchdown. A poor punt by Brian Hansen and Kemp’s passes to Redden for 19 and Ellard for nine reached the Saints’ eight with five seconds remaining, but guess what: strong safety Terry Hoage dropped Kemp for a 13-yard loss as the game ended.
“A dark day for us,” Robinson said. “We were thoroughly overwhelmed and beaten. We have to give Wade Phillips and his staff a great deal of credit for fighting through the week and coming up with a great performance.”
Phillips, who became a head coach for at least four games when Bum resigned last Monday after a 30-23 win at Minnesota, couldn’t explain the Saints’ performance much better than Robinson explained the Rams’.
He said his team “played with a lot of emotion (and) changed our defensive strategy a bit by blitzing from the outside. We took more chances on defense.”
The Saints played more man-to-man pass coverage than their usual zone but rushed Brock so hard that he was unable to take advantage.
The Saints awarded game balls to the Phillipses, father and son. Bum was back home in Texas Sunday, but at least one Saint didn’t seem sorry.
Jackson said: “Playing under Wade is certainly a pleasure. There’s a bit more discipline. The past week was the best week of practice we’ve had since I’ve been here, five years. The guys went into this game thinking we could win, and that hasn’t been so in the past.”
The Rams said they had a good week of practice, too, at least on their “heavy” days of Wednesday and Thursday.
“We had one of the best practices we’ve ever had Wednesday,” Harrah said. “We hit as hard as men can hit. We worked.”
Robinson indicated that Brock will start at San Francisco next week, despite Sunday’s switch to Kemp.
“We just weren’t getting anything done,” he said. “I thought Jeff, with his ability to run, might have been effective. People were on us right away. It seemed like a million sacks.”
It was the most sacks against the Rams since the 49ers buried James Harris 10 times in a 16-0 loss on a Monday night at the Coliseum in 1976.
Omen II?
Ram Notes The Saints kept Ron Brown bottled up on kickoff returns until the fourth quarter when he had runbacks of 43 and 38 yards. He was 6 for 160 yards. . . . Dale Hatcher averaged 50 yards on 5 punts.
HOW IT STANDS
Team W L T Pct. GB PF PA TD L.A. Rams 9 4 0 .692 - 261 227 San Francisco 8 5 0 .615 1 329 201