Rams’ Plan Was to Give Away No Secrets

Ram Coach John Robinson indicated Tuesday that his team walked into Monday’s alley fight with the Raiders with one hand tied behind its back. That way, Robinson seemed to be saying, it could come out swinging against the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs Jan. 4.

“We certainly were determined not to do anything new offensively, so we went with what we had had,” Robinson said the morning after the 16-6 defeat.

“Probably the area that we wanted to hold back--not hold back, but not do anything different or have anything that was unusual--was in the area of (attacking) the nickel defense. I think they (the Raiders) have an exceptional nickel defense, and I think Dallas does, too.

A nickel defense features an extra (fifth) defensive back and is used most often in likely passing situations.

“So that was the area where we said, ‘Let’s make sure we don’t try to do too many things that we would also try to do against Dallas,” Robinson said. “Dallas probably excels in their defense in the passing downs, when they get you third and eight and third and 10, so we have to be careful and be well prepared in that area.”

Until the Raiders put the game away in the last quarter, the Rams found themselves in third-and-long situations 13 times. Five times they ran the ball, eight times they tried to pass. The key word, of course, is tried.

Their fans may have groaned when they ran the ball in seemingly impossible yardage situations, but it worked better than passing. Three times quarterback Dieter Brock was sacked, one throw was dropped, another fell incomplete. Three were completed, but two of those were erased by penalties.

Besides permitting six sacks, the Rams’ offensive line drew three flags for holding (two declined) and three more for false starts, and that had nothing to do with the game plan.

The Rams changed their personality on defense, but for different reasons. They blitzed their linebackers only one time--when Marc Wilson passed 21 yards to Dokie Williams for the game’s only touchdown.

“We wanted to make a big play and he (Wilson) just picked it up very well,” defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur said. “But we weren’t trying to keep anything back. We thought we’d be more effective playing the zones. We needed to control Marcus (Allen) and stay away from one-on-one situations up the field. I thought we controlled that part of it pretty well. He caught 8 passes for only 25 yards.”

When the Rams scored a touchdown on Brock’s pass to Tony Hunter, the play was canceled when Ron Brown was called for a “pick” against a defender (similar to a pick in basketball) on the other side of the field.

“I was, and am, concerned about that particular call,” Robinson said. “If we’d have had that touchdown, I think it would have been a different game.”

The flag was thrown by back judge Don Wedge, who, Robinson said, “basically called us for picking one of their players, which is something that’s done repeatedly in the NFL. The Raiders did it to us.

“If you’re gonna call it, they have to call seven or eight a game. Usually everybody complains (about picks) and the officials just kind of smile at you and shrug their shoulders.”

“Ron Brown comes in motion, and down there against man-to-man coverage you run crossing-type patterns so that people (defenders) have to fight their way through traffic. In that pattern, sometimes there’s a collision, and if there’s a collision, you can call offensive pass interference.

“It isn’t illegal to run that kind of a pattern, (but) somebody going in and blocking (setting a pick on) somebody is illegal, but it’s one of those undefined things. You don’t run a pick play, as such. You run a play where you make it difficult for the man covering the inside receiver to fight his way through traffic. The nature of it leads to people getting rubbed off (picked).”

Robinson praised the play of rival runners Allen and his own Eric Dickerson. Allen, who played for Robinson at USC, ran for 123 yards to win the National Football League rushing title with 1,759, while Dickerson had 98 to close with 1,234 after missing two games in his holdout.

“There wasn’t an inch of that turf given up that somebody didn’t have to earn,” Robinson said, “and he (Allen) certainly earned the yards that he got.”

Robinson said he was “frankly surprised” at Dickerson’s performance, following a weekend of doubt about his tight hamstring.

“All week, he was saying he would be all right, and yet he couldn’t run. I was prepared to not play him if he didn’t warm up well. He’s a guy with tight muscles, and I really felt that there was something else there other than just the hamstring. Maybe I was wrong.”

The Rams already had clinched the home field advantage to open the playoffs against Dallas.

“And if we had won, everybody would probably have said, ‘Well, you won a meaningless game,’ ” Robinson said. “I think it (the home field) means a lot, especially for an AstroTurf team coming in and playing on grass.”

The Cowboys have played on grass only twice this season and are 1-1, including last weekend’s loss at San Francisco.

And if the Rams had needed the win?

“Well, I suppose our approach might have been different,” Robinson said. “I think we would have attempted to have some ideas that we might be wanting to use against Dallas.”

Ram Notes

Quarterback Dieter Brock set a club single-season record by completing 59.7% of his passes (218 of 365). That topped the 59.4% performance of Vince Ferragamo in 1980 . . . The Rams’ only reported injury was a sore finger suffered by center Tony Slaton. It wasn’t thought to be serious . . . The Rams will start practicing for Dallas on Friday.