Pro Football : White Can Thank Strike for Rushing Lead

Going into the last weekend of the regular season, there would be only one player in the National Football League with 1,000 yards rushing this year--Eric Dickerson of the Indianapolis Colts--if the strike hadn’t messed things up two months ago.

Dickerson didn’t play strikeball. His successor on the Rams, Charles White, did. And so White will probably win the rushing title in the final game at San Francisco Sunday night.

After 14 weeks, Dickerson has 1,092 yards to White’s 940 in union competition. That’s a 152-yard difference.

But in the three non-union games, White gained 339 yards. So he is first in the NFL with 1,279, 187 ahead of Dickerson.

In a tough year for running backs, White and Dickerson are the only ones with more than 1,000 yards. Next are Curt Warner of the Seattle Seahawks, with 900, and Rueben Mayes of the New Orleans Saints, with 864.

The odds against two of the National Football Conference’s best quarterbacks going down with hamstring pulls at the same time of the year are long, particularly during the season’s stretch drive.

It is sprinters who usually pull hamstrings not passers.

But this month, hamstring injuries have sidelined Joe Montana of the San Francisco 49ers and Jim McMahon of the Chicago Bears.

McMahon is expected to be out again this week; Montana may play some against the Rams on Sunday evening.

As a result, the Super Bowl race remains chaotic.

The 49ers and Bears are probably the league’s top teams when led by their No. 1 quarterbacks. Without them, however, nothing is certain in the NFL--not even the sites of any of the playoff games.

The NFC wild-card game a week from Sunday could be either at San Francisco or New Orleans--despite the fact that the 49ers (12-2) and Saints (11-3) are the only two NFL teams with more than 10 wins this season.

Things are even harder to figure in the American Football Conference, where no division titles have been won yet. If there aren’t too many upsets this weekend, the wild-card game in the AFC will be played Jan. 3, either at Seattle (9-5) or Denver (9-4-1).

Ron Meyer of the Colts is continuing to stake a powerful claim to coach of the year.

His team was 0-13 when General Manager Jim Irsay signed him 12 months ago. The Colts’ record since is 12-6.

And, the Colts will win the AFC East Sunday at the Hoosier Dome if they defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who haven’t beaten anyone in two months.

Irsay got him the players. Then Meyer brought discipline, cohesion and a winning attitude to what was the AFC’s worst team for years.

The Colts (8-6) showed last Sunday in San Diego that they have everything now but imagination and a quarterback.

Indianapolis is predictable on both sides of the ball. On offense, the Colts use a sound system--the one-back formation--but without much motion, thus losing most of the values of the one-back attack.

What’s more, the Colts run few reverses and few counter plays, nor do they run often out of the shotgun formation.

Instead, they ask Dickerson to line up and slug it out with the linebackers, who, with nothing else to worry about, are waiting for him.

The mystery is how Dickerson gains 100 yards a week in that offense.

But this morning, Dickerson’s team is closer to the playoffs than his former team. For that, he can thank Meyer and Irsay--and the Rams.

Ram Coach John Robinson made two good, bold calls against the Dallas Cowboys Monday night. Both backfired only when his team couldn’t execute. And because the Cowboys played more aggressively than the Rams, Robinson is out of the playoffs for the first time.

There is no logical basis for the adage, “Never take points off the board,” which no doubt was said by a few after a decision by Robinson late in the first half. Mike Lansford had made a 45-yard field goal to cut Dallas’ lead to 13-10, but Michael Downs of the Cowboys was offsides on the play, giving the Rams the choice of taking the three points or a first down at the Dallas 23.

Robinson took the first down, and two plays later a pass by Ram quarterback Jim Everett was intercepted by the Cowboys’ Jesse Penn.

At the right time and place, a good coach will almost always take three points off the board in order to pursue a touchdown. As for the Rams, in their uphill fight for the playoffs against a curiously inspired team, their coach chose the right time and place.

Next, in the fourth quarter with more than six minutes left, Robinson decided to go for a first down on fourth and two at the Ram 20. The Rams’ possession ended on an incomplete pass.

The Rams needed a touchdown on that drive to win the game. After injuries and trades had taken away Robinson’s first-string backfield, his second-stringers, including quarterback Steve Dils, couldn’t have managed the clock nimbly enough to score twice in the last four or five minutes if, instead of passing the ball, they had punted on that fourth down.

More troubling is the way the Rams’ offensive line and defense played. This didn’t look like a Robinson-era team. It was Dallas that did.

On their home field Sunday, the Buffalo Bills didn’t play their game, either.

The Bills, one of the fastest-rising AFC teams, suddenly threw a shoe against an opponent they should have handled, the New England Patriots, who shut down Jim Kelly and won, 13-7.

“I think it was just us not being at the top of our game,” Buffalo tackle tackle Leonard Burton said.

Said Bill Coach Marv Levy: “I told the team they played hard enough. They just didn’t play well enough.”

As Jerry Rice’s phenomenal season continues in San Francisco, the explanations for it continue to come.

This week his new quarterback, Steve Young, told Bay Area writers: “It isn’t his speed, it’s his work ethic.”

Said Rice: “The main thing I’m looking at is the weakness of the defensive back. How good can he come out of his backpedal? Does he like to play inside or outside? Does he like to guess? And how aggressive is he?”

So far, Rice has gotten all the right answers.

His league-record 21 touchdown receptions this season have put him in sight of the scoring record for a running back.

It is, of course, a bit easier for runners to make touchdowns because they get some easy short-yardage chances--as did the record holder, John Riggins, who scored 24 times for the Washington Redskins in 1983.

Second is O.J. Simpson, who scored 23 for the Buffalo Bills in 1975. In an earlier day, Gale Sayers of the Bears and Chuck Foreman of the Minnesota Vikings each had 22 touchdowns in a season.

With nothing else to play for now, the Rams will make Rice their defensive priority this week.

George Rogers, who was brought to Washington to succeed Riggins as the one back in the Redskins’ offense, has had to share the position with Kelvin Bryant on passing downs.

Last week, Coach Joe Gibbs made it a trio when he began alternating rookie Timmy Smith as well.

“George will start,” Gibbs said. “Whoever’s hot will stay in there.”

The change was one more indication that the Redskins (10-4) are dissatisfied with their offense. Benching quarterback Jay Schroeder earlier this season was another such suggestion. Their defense is also suspect.

Accordingly, in a year when Washington’s main Super Bowl opponents, the 49ers and Bears, have both lost their quarterbacks, Gibbs is having trouble capitalizing.

An NFC division winner, Washington couldn’t even beat AFC also-ran Miami last week, losing, 22-21.

A possible home-field playoff shot at the Bears is riding on the Redskins’ game today at Minnesota, where the Vikings (8-6) need one more victory to take a wild-card berth away from St. Louis (7-7).

The surprisingly warm Cardinals are at Dallas.