49ers Win West and Send Rams East, 24-14 : Montana Leads San Francisco to Division Title; L.A. Will Face Washington in Wild-Card Playoff
Once, they were a team with a game-and-a-half lead on the competition and only two teeny-weeny games remaining.
They were the Rams--the proud, the few. The team that would just as soon run you over as look at you.
The Rams were going to pick up the NFC West title trophy at the engraver’s today. Deck the halls with this, Joe Montana.
Too many things had to happen for the Rams to lose the division. You needed a calculator. It was as improbable as the Angels losing the pennant.
So guess what happened?
On a chilly Friday evening at Candlestick Park, a redundancy, the Rams met their kiss of death.
The San Francisco 49ers did the unthinkable, beating the Rams, 24-14, before a sellout crowd of 60,366.
In one evening, the 49ers won the division and knocked the Rams clear to Washington, where they must now meet the Redskins a week from Sunday in a National Football League wild-card game.
The Rams will have trouble stuffing long underwear into duffel bags for that trip, the one that wasn’t supposed to be.
The 49ers played the division like a great horse race, laying back the whole season and then making a sudden charge to beat the Rams at the wire.
The Rams, though, won’t be needing a photo of this finish.
San Francisco took an early 10-0 lead on its way to the title.
If the Rams need some numbers to sort out their nightmare, here are just a few:
The 49ers had 408 yards to the Rams’ 229. The 49ers had quarterback Montana, a veteran who threw for 238 yards and 2 touchdowns. The Rams had quarterback Jim Everett, a rookie who threw 3 interceptions.
The 49ers had balance, the Rams had confusion.
Only twice in three quarters did the Rams tip the nose of the football past their own 50-yard line. And they could thank a Vince Newsome interception for one of those spots.
Running back Eric Dickerson, the NFL’s leading rusher, carried the ball just 10 times in the first half.
The Rams admitted afterward that somewhere along the line, they had lost a bit of their machismo .
Maybe with the coming of Everett and fancy passes, the Rams strayed from what they do best.
“We’ve got to be the Rams again,” Ram tackle Irv Pankey said. “That’s total domination. It’s being physical and attacking.”
Everett himself admitted as much.
“That’s the way we’re most effective,” he said.
The Rams instead got behind early and tried to catch up in a hurry. They took Dickerson out of the game plan.
‘When you score a lot of points early, it tends to keep Eric off the field,” 49er safety Ronnie Lott said.
The 49er defense certainly had something to do with it.
They swarmed Dickerson with tacklers and kept pressure on Everett all night.
Dickerson finished with 68 yards in 18 carries.
Still, the Rams blamed themselves for not being Ram-tough.
Guard Dennis Harrah almost spilled the whole ugly story to reporters but caught himself just in time.
“I’m trying to stay on the rail of the fence,” Harrah said. “The way I can do that is to get in the damn shower right now.”
The Rams are already talking about changes, perhaps returning to full-uniform practices in the week ahead to get back the edge.
Friday night hit the Rams hard.
The 49ers dominated the first quarter, scoring on a 30-yard Ray Wersching field goal and a 44-yard touchdown pass from Montana to Jerry Rice, who made the catch despite interference from Ram safety Nolan Cromwell.
San Francisco was leading, 10-0, and headed for more early in the second quarter when Montana slipped up and overthrew a wide-open Dwight Clark. The ball instead went to a wide-open Ram safety, Newsome, who returned the interception 34 yards to the 49er 42.
Newsome’s play seemed to raise the Rams from their slumber, for it took them just four plays to reach the end zone.
Dickerson, using a good block from tackle Jackie Slater, swept left for 15 yards and a touchdown, cutting the lead to 10-7 with 11:53 left in the first half.
But the Rams could not continue their momentum.
They pinned San Francisco back on its eight-yard line on the following kickoff, then watched as Montana picked them to pieces.
By the time the 49ers reached the end zone on a two-yard run by Cribbs, they had traveled 92 yards on the Ram defense, using 8:35 on the clock.
It was a typical Montana drive, filled with passes that were short but sweet. Montana passed 17 yards to Russ Francis, 11 to Clark, 13 to Cribbs, 12 to Roger Craig and 11 more to Clark at the Ram four, setting up Cribbs’ scoring run with 3:18 left in the half.
“The most significant action in the game was that 92-yard drive for a touchdown following ours,” Ram Coach John Robinson said. “It got them back in charge.”
The Rams were hoping for a second half similar to last Sunday’s against Miami, when they rallied to send the game into overtime after being behind, 21-7, at halftime.
But this second half wouldn’t be the same.
A third-quarter Everett pass intended for Kevin House was intercepted by 49er cornerback Tim McKyer, who returned it 11 yards to the Ram 36.
San Francisco turned that into a one-yard pass from Montana to Francis to put the 49ers up, 24-7, with 8:28 left.
It seemingly put the game out of reach, though Robinson was determined to make a statement in the fourth quarter when he screamed on the sideline that the Rams were going to play the quarter differently.
“I said that I was not going to walk out of here and not do some of the things we’re capable of doing,” Robinson said.
The Rams played better in that last quarter, but it was too late.
They cut the lead to 24-14 with 5:31 left on a 13-yard pass from Everett to Mike Young. Then, they even recovered a 49er fumble, but the drive ended on an incomplete Everett pass on fourth down, sending the crowd at Candlestick into celebration.
The Rams promise it will be different next time.
“We have to go to the old football philosophy,” Harrah said. “We have to go back to basics of blocking and tackling and catching, and work up.”
