‘Gap, Check With Me’ : A Call for Ram Basics: Give the Ball to Dickerson

The Rams’ winning touchdown play Sunday, Coach John Robinson said, was “basic us,” which means the linemen knock half the enemy flat and Eric Dickerson outruns the others.

Offhand, it seems about as cerebral as a punch in the mouth, but the thinking behind it runs as deep as a chess match: You make your move and I’ll make mine.

That’s partly why the Ram offense presented little more than a first-quarter overture before going sour and then returning for a four-play encore that produced the overtime victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Adjustments have to be made. Sometimes it takes time. When overtime arrived Sunday, the Rams were ready.

Assistant coaches Dick Coury and Bruce Snyder call the plays from the sideline, Coury specializing in passes and Snyder in runs, on Robinson’s approval. The choice is signaled to the quarterback--in Sunday’s case, Steve Dils--who does the rest. Afterward, the principals broke it down, each from his own point of view.

The Rams won the overtime coin toss and elected to receive. Ron Brown returned the kickoff to his 27-yard line.

1. First down at the Ram 27. Coury calls “Read Screen Left.” Wide receiver Bobby Duckworth catches Dils’ pass for an 18-yard gain to the Ram 45.

“They had been running some safety blitzes on the running game in the second half, and we were running on first down, so we thought we’d start out with a screen--the one we’d thrown to Eric early in the game where he almost broke a touchdown,” Coury said.

“(Dils’) read took him to the outside guy. He’s got a read on the linebacker and they came right out to Eric, so he sent it upfield.”

Duckworth: “It was a screen. I guess Eric couldn’t get out on it, so they came to the secondary (receiver), which was me. I ran a curl.”

Dils: “The (play) was supposed to be a moving quick screen to Eric. They played man to man and left the turn open to Bobby.”

2. First down at the Ram 45. Snyder sends in “Toss Right.” Dickerson loses three yards.

Dils: “We ran a pitch and they had a strong safety (Craig Swoope) up and they stopped us. Probably, I made a mistake in not audibling out of that.”

3. Second and 13 at the Ram 42. Coury calls “Action Pass Left.” Dils fakes a handoff to Dickerson, turns and passes to Brown for 16 yards.

Coury: “We went with our play action to get the ball either in the flat to the fullback or upfield. (Dils) faked off-tackle to Eric, (Brown) ran another curl and (Dils) came out to Ron.”

Dils: “We ran a play we’d been running, a turn to Ron, and somebody jumped the flat, which they hadn’t been doing, so I was able to put it in behind ‘em.”

Brown: “(Cornerback Rod Jones) was laying off a little bit. They were both laying off pretty good.”

4. First down at the Buccaneer 42. Snyder calls “Gap, Check With Me.” Dickerson runs 42 yards for the winning touchdown.

Snyder: “If you’re in a one-tight end, two-wide receiver offense, they know where your strong running attack is. It’s where (tight end) David (Hill) is. So what we did, we took out (fullback) Barry Redden, put in (tight end) Tony Hunter and went to two tight ends and two wide receivers.

“Now they don’t know where your strength is (because) you’re balanced. Now they have to declare where they want to go. We could see it and went away from it.

“I sent in what is called a ‘check with me.’ (Dils) tells the players, ‘Let’s get up on the ball, check with me about what the play is,’ and he calls it out once he’s up there. He could see which way they were coming, and we went the other way.”

Dils: “(Free safety) Ivory (Sully) was in the middle and their strong safety was up on the line. All we’re doing is running away from their strong safety. If they bring both of ‘em down, which we see sometimes and which they did on the first play, I’d have gone to a pass.”

At the line, Dils called a code word to tell his players whether the play was going left or right. He saw Swoope on the left, so he called right.

Dickerson: “They were thinking run. Everything happened so quick out there. I saw (tackle) Jackie Slater. I pushed him and got hit and bounced off and it was just straight up.”

If it’s that easy, as it was when Dickerson ran for 105 yards on the first two possessions, why didn’t the Rams keep doing it earlier?

Snyder: “It kind of threw our rhythm off when they started coming after us in the second half (by blitzing Swoope). I think they paid the price for it on the touchdown. Once you break the scrimmage line and all of your people are blitzing, there’s nobody to make the tackle.”

Brown said the Rams knew the pass plays were open all day, that the Rams’ spotters could see it from upstairs.

“We just didn’t get an opportunity to get to it, our running game was working so good,” Brown said, “but it was there.”

Duckworth was more blunt.

“We’re capable of moving the ball,” he said. “That’s why we were so frustrated. With the people we’ve got, how many times did we go upfield today? None.”