Rams’ Double Threat : Henry Ellard Catches Passes and Punts, and Likes Doing Something Special
Henry Ellard is a Ram wide receiver and punt returner, which is the equivalent of a movie star who moonlights as a complaints clerk.
Wide receivers are glamorous. Punt returners are worker bees. Wide receivers slip through zones or sneak past cornerbacks for touchdowns. Punt returners hope for 10 yards and full recovery of their motor skills.
What a pleasant feeling to know that 11 men are rushing toward you with the intent to crush.
“Actually, I don’t see them,” Ellard said. “I’m concentrating on the ball the whole time.”
Fine, but he hears them.
“Yeah, I’ve been pretty lucky,” Ellard said. “They haven’t had a chance where a guy laid me out. Hopefully, it won’t happen.”
Returning punts is what Ellard knows best. Last season, he earned a trip to the Pro Bowl as a return man. While he was there, NFC coaches even let him play wide receiver.
This season, Ellard led the Rams in pass receiving. He will go into Sunday’s NFC championship game against the Chicago Bears as the most likely target for whatever passes the ground-oriented Rams throw.
Earlier this season, against the Atlanta Falcons, Ellard caught a pass for what should have been an eight-yard gain and turned it into a 64-yard touchdown reception. Against the San Francisco 49ers, he had nine receptions for 120 yards and a touchdown.
Ellard finished the regular season with 54 catches, 5 more than he had in his first two seasons, and 5 touchdowns.
“It’s tough covering Henry,” Ram cornerback LeRoy Irvin said. “I know, because I’ve been covering him for three years (in practice). He’s been overlooked because we don’t throw that much.”
This was just the second season in which Ellard caught more passes than punts. And last season, he had just four more receptions than punt returns. With his marked improvement as a wide receiver, it figures that Ellard would let someone else become a human tackling target on punt returns. Not Ellard, who revels in the stuff.
“It’s something that I enjoy doing,” said Ellard, who was picked in the second round of the 1983 draft. “It’s not that somebody forced me to do it.
“Sometimes, you can jump into the league and have big things happen. I’m the kind of person who likes to work my way up and become a productive receiver as the years go by. Things are more or less going in that direction right now.”
Mostly more. Ellard said this was the first season he has felt more valuable to the Rams as a wide receiver than as a punt returner. Others have noticed. Irvin, for one, gets a bit excited by the potential of Ellard and wide receivers Bobby Duckworth and Ron Brown. He called them “the best pass receivers in the league, maybe in the history of the game.”
With the Rams’ conservative offense, however, the three caught 93 passes this season, just one more than San Francisco running back Roger Craig caught by himself.
Gil Haskell, the Ram special-teams coach, said he finds nothing special about the arrangement involving Ellard. Anyway, Haskell said, “Henry wants to do it. For him, it’s a another chance to handle the ball.”
Ellard finished second to New England’s Irving Fryar in punt return average. Fryar, too, was a starting wide receiver, at least before he cut his hand Wednesday in a kitchen accident. “And I don’t think New England would like to take Irving Fryar off their punt return team,” Haskell said.
There have been other players who did well as punt returners and wide receivers: Rick Upchurch, formerly of Denver; Billy (White Shoes) Johnson of Atlanta, and now Fryar, Ellard and Louis Lipps of Pittsburgh.
“Maybe it’s becoming the thing to do,” Haskell said.
Ellard is in no hurry to change. Take Sunday’s game against Chicago. Ellard wants nothing more than to be one of the special-team guys.
“We may be 10-point underdogs, but I think the game could be pretty much ruled even,” he said. “That’s where special teams come into effect. With myself and (kickoff returner) Ron Brown, I think we can make some things happen.”
As for this meeting with the Bear defensive secondary, which includes Pro Bowl strong safety Dave Duerson, Ellard said he’ll employ an old favorite--silence.
“I don’t let a cornerback get to me,” he said. “Like last week against the Cowboys, Dennis Thurman started talking to me after Everson Walls, their cornerback, intercepted a pass. He said, ‘You can’t beat him.’ And I just looked at him and smiled.
“I don’t consider myself a person who can be intimidated,” he said.
Said Irvin: “Our receivers are not your rock ‘em, sock ‘em type of guys. They’re gentlemen-type receivers. But I don’t think they can be intimidated, either.”
Ram Notes Henry Ellard and defensive back Vince Newsome, who missed parts of Wednesday’s practice because of slight injuries, returned to workouts Thursday. No problems. . . . Ram punter Dale Hatcher, on former Clemson teammate William (The Refrigerator) Perry: “He’s just a crazy guy. It’s always been William Perry this, William Perry that. It was like he was the whole team.” Hatcher said Perry’s nickname on the Clemson team was William (Freaky) Perry.