Dickerson Set to Carry On, but Maybe Not Like This

Steve Bartkowski’s less-than-awe-inspiring passing performance Sunday did little to insure his status as the Rams’ No. 1 quarterback. But then, he had no problems handing the ball to Eric Dickerson, and what else does a Ram quarterback really have to do these days?

Dickerson carried the ball a club-record 38 times and in the process carried the Rams to a 16-10 season-opening victory over St. Louis. He scored both touchdowns--on runs of 1 and 16 yards--and gained 193 of the Rams’ total of 199 yards rushing, more than double the 70 net yards that Bartkowski and Co. could manage passing.

“If I didn’t start out 0 for 6,” said Bartkowski, who completed just 5-of-21 passes, “Eric probably wouldn’t have had to carry 40 times. I’d love to take him to dinner tonight, but I don’t know if he’d eat with me.”

If you’re thinking that Dickerson was probably too tired to pick up a fork, you’re wrong. He sat in front of his locker after the game looking surprisingly refreshed.

“I never felt tired at all,” he said, smiling.

Maybe that’s because he was loafing. Coach John Robinson said he didn’t think Dickerson “ran very hard” in the first half. So he gave his star running back a lot more chances to redeem himself after halftime.

“Yeah, I figured he’d run the ball 36-37-38 times going in,” Robinson said, facetiously, then said honestly: “No, I didn’t think that way at all. We didn’t have any big plan, really. We were controlling the game with the run, so we stayed with it.”

And imagine what Dickerson might have accomplished had he been able to see where he was going?

“My biggest problem was that my glasses kept fogging up,” he said. “They were fogging up real bad.”

The drizzle that fell through much of the first half did more than cloud his vision, though. It made the ball and the field slippery, and Dickerson ended up fumbling three times. Only one was recovered by the Cardinals, but that one also set up St. Louis’ last-ditch shot at a victory. The comeback fell short when time ran out as the Cardinals frantically tried to get off a play from the Ram one-yard line.

“I couldn’t make good, hard cuts,” Dickerson said. “I was like treading on the water. And the ball was wet and my hands were dry.

“But anytime I fumble, I don’t think I had a good game. Big numbers are nice, but if I fumble, that really disturbs me.”

“Sickness, serious sickness” was the way Dickerson described his feelings as he watched helplessly from the sidelines as the Cardinals drove toward what could have been the winning touchdown. That feeling overwhelmed the pain in his side that had been enough to keep him down on the ground for about a minute after the fumble.

Cardinal safety Dennis Thurman, intent on separating Dickerson from the ball, had almost separated the Ram running back’s ribs at the same time. The ball was finally recovered by Cardinal linebacker Niko Noga, about 10 yards downfield at the St. Louis 37.

“It was just one of those things,” said Thurman, who forced another one of Dickerson’s fumbles. “We needed to make a big play and we needed him to lay it on the ground. Somebody had already lifted him up, and I was the clean-up tackler. I just came in from behind and jarred the ball loose.”

Dickerson was taken for precautionary X-rays after the game but said later that he felt “fine,” and was sure he’d be able to play next week against San Francisco.

“He got me under the flak jacket,” Dickerson said, pointing to his right side. “It’s a little sore is all.”

Thurman, for one, figures Dickerson is probably a bit more sore than that.

“Hey, he got hammered today,” Thurman said. “He wasn’t at no picnic, drinking a glass of wine and watching the ants go by. He paid the price today, and he’s gonna be grimacing on that plane ride back to L.A.”

Dickerson was all smiles, though, even while admitting that the offense generally “stunk up the place” and bad-mouthing his own inability to hang onto the football.

But there was a hint of apprehension on his face when someone asked if he is prepared to maintain this workload for 15 more weeks.

“I don’t know, man,” he said, softly. “I just don’t know.”