Dickerson Leaves Cowboys, Many Marks in His Wake
Eric Dickerson, if only for a few precious hours, is once again the greatest running back in town.
Of course, it would be just like ol’ Marcus what’s-his-face to show him up later today, but please, just this once, might Eric be allowed to savor his moment?
It isn’t every day that you do what Dickerson did to the Dallas Cowboys Saturday. Come to think of it, no one has ever dared to try this against the heralded flex defense of the Cowboys.
That Dickerson of the Rams should wait until now to pull out his trump card makes it all the sweeter. It’s just gravy that it should come wrapped as part of a 20-0 win over the Cowboys in a game that puts the Rams within a heartbeat or two of the Super Bowl.
Saturday, Eric Dickerson propped a few cherished records in front of him and plowed through them like so many pins in a bowling alley.
The very words, two hundred forty-eight yards , on 34 carries, will taste sweet on his lips for years to come.
And to these records we can say goodby:.
--NFL single-game playoff rushing total. The old mark was 206 yards set in 1963 by Keith Lincoln of the San Diego Chargers. Dickerson raced past Lincoln and the record on his 40-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. But, holy flex defense, there were still 14 minutes remaining.
--Most yards ever gained by a back against Dallas. The great Jim Brown ran for 232 yards against the Cowboys in 1963, and not until Dickerson had that been surpassed. And how happy it makes Dickerson that he was the one chosen to wreck a page in the Cowboy media guide. “I respect Dallas, they’ve always been a great football team, but I have never been a fan of Dallas,” Dickerson said. “Some might think that’s funny because I’m a native of Texas. But, as a I kid, I always used to say that I’d love to play against the Dallas Cowboys.”
On Saturday, though, he rather toyed with them. There were two touchdown runs--one up the heart of America’s Team for 55 yards with 14:39 left in the third quarter and another 40-yarder around right end early in the fourth.
It was enough to send Coach John Robinson into poetic bliss.
“He played as great a game as I’ve ever seen a man play,” Robinson said. “He was running hard, right from the start.”
It was a Robinson dream game come true, where his star back beats a defense, flex or no flex, senseless. It was a game in which the very spine of defensive philosophy crumbled along with record after record.
If this sounds like another broken record, well, it is.
--Ram single-game rushing total. This one, of 247 yards set by Willie Ellison back in 1971, fell late, when the game was no longer in doubt.
Dickerson was through for the day, if he so wished. But someone whispered in Robinson’s ear, and soon the coach asked the back if he wanted the record. The back said yes. He ran back in the game only four yards shy. He picked up one on his first try and three more on his next, with just 1:44 remaining. This time, he came to the sideline for good.
There are days, like Saturday, when Dickerson is so good that his linemen hear him more than see him. It seems he just whooshes through the line like a train through a station.
On Dickerson’s 55-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, center Tony Slaton and guard Kent Hill nicely sealed off a section of the Cowboy defense. Dallas linebacker Eugene Lockhart went with the flow at about the time Dickerson was cutting against it.
“It was fantastic,” Slaton said. “I say that. Of course, I didn’t see it. He just ran behind me. A lot of the time, I just get to see him running down the field.”
It’s a feeling Dickerson also loves, but has gone too long without in this, his season of discontent. Dickerson knows the scars of his two-game holdout will never fully come clean. When someone asked Robinson how he’d stop Dickerson, the coach said: “I’d have him hold out.”
All season along, while another back was taking over the town and collecting MVP’s like coat hangers, Dickerson fought off the wolves.
“The media said I had lost my desire,” Dickerson said. “They said I wasn’t running the same way. But I love football, and every time I go out, there I give it my best, because I know every play can be my last.”
He was running that way Saturday, for sure.
“It had been so long since I’ve had a home run,” he said. “It felt so great to get out in the open and do what I say--’turn on the jets.’ ”
And, on any given Saturday, nobody does it better.
TOP PLAYOFF RUSHING PERFORMANCES
Player Team Yards Opponent, Year 1 Eric Dickerson L.A. Rams 248 vs. Dallas, 1986 2 Keith Lincoln San Diego 206 vs. Boston, 1963 3t Lawrence McCutcheon L.A. Rams 202 vs. St. Louis, 1975 3t Freeman McNeil N.Y. Jets 202 vs. Cincinnati, 1983 5 Steve Van Buren Philadelphia 196 vs. L.A. Rams, 1949
