Pro Football / Week 4 : Ram Timing Is in Sync for Giant Game Today

Look out Big Apple, Gary Jeter and the boys have touched down near your landfill and are looking for trouble.

Twenty-one sacks in three games? That’s the stuff of New York Giants, not the left-coasters. In fact, the Rams look more like the Giants these days than the Giants, who, without Lawrence Taylor, have only 6 sacks.

Six? The Rams, 3-0 and rolling into Giants Stadium today, got that many in the first game. Jeter, the former Giant, fell only one sack short of that mark by himself last Sunday.

Quarterback Phil Simms, you remember Gary Jeter, of course? He was your roommate once. Now he’s your worst nightmare. And why is it, Simms wonders, that every time he looks up, every two-bit defense in the league is charging him with 34-year-old, fountain-of-youth-drinking defensive ends.

Simms’ eyes were wide and bloodshot this week after watching the Rams’ mad sackers turn Raider quarterback Steve Beuerlein into a Four Seasons song--remember “Rag Doll”?

For Simms, it was almost as ugly as watching his defense.

“I hate it,” he said of the new Rams’ scheme. “It’s how I would view any team with 21 sacks. I’ll tell you it’s a little depressing, all these teams that have got this many sacks. It seems to be the way in this league now. The quarterback sits back and says, ‘Oh, here’s another team. Oh, what a surprise, they’re rushing the quarterback.’ It’s incredible, it seems the priority on every damn team now is to get the quarterback.”

Simms’ ribs are aching already.

But wasn’t it his defense 2 years ago that put a half dozen quarterbacks out of commission on the Giants’ way to the Super Bowl title?

Simms has reason to worry. Like the Raiders’ last week, his offensive line is hurting these days. Right tackle Karl Nelson, who made a remarkable comeback from Hodgkin’s disease, is out with a severe ankle sprain. His replacement is second-round pick John Elliott.

“Obviously, he needs to get acclimated to the NFL,” Giant Coach Bill Parcells said of Elliott. “Unfortunately, I think he’s going to.”

You might even think the Rams are catching the Giants at the perfect time, figuring that any time you face the Giants without Taylor is the perfect time. Sure, the Giants are 2-1, but it hasn’t been a dominant 2-1. There was a 7-point victory over Washington, a 3-point loss to San Francisco and a controversial 12-10 win over Dallas last Sunday. The margin of victory in the Cowboy game was a safety that should never have been called a safety.

“Our games have been helter-skelter,” Parcells said. “It’s been hang on every minute, and whoever makes the play at the end is going to win. That’s basically what’s happened. We could be 0-3 as well as 3-0.”

Most experts had been predicting a return to dominance for the Giants this season, but they’ve stumbled out of the blocks.

More evidence: Starting this season, the Giants’ defense had allowed only one 100-yard rusher in the team’s previous 28 games. So far this season, two runners--Washington’s Timmy Smith and the 49ers’ Roger Craig--have gone over the 100-yard mark.

What does it all mean, the Giants without Taylor?

Nothing, Ram Coach John Robinson said.

“He’s a great player, but it’s a great defense,” he said. “Carl Banks is one of the top players today. They don’t go from strength to weakness. They go from very strong to strong.”

The Giants have filled the void left by Taylor’s absence by signing former Colt linebacker Johnie Cooks, who will start today.

Still, in the battle of substance abusers on suspension, the Rams probably come out on top. In other words, the Giants need Lawrence Taylor more than the Rams need Charles White. White has been replaced nicely by Greg Bell, who has 273 yards and ranks behind only Eric Dickerson and Herschel Walker.

And Taylor hasn’t been Parcells’ only problem.

“Every coach has his problems, and I know you don’t want to hear mine,” Parcells said.

Oh, but we do.

“We’ve had a lot of problems this season,” he said.

Everyone knows about Taylor. But the Giants have also lost punter Sean Landeta to injury. Star right defensive end Leonard Marshall has been limping around with a bad hamstring. Banks and tight end Mark Bavaro were long training-camp holdouts.

So is this the time to hit the Giants and run?

“We’ve had five Pro Bowl players, including Taylor, Marshall, Banks, Bavaro and Landeta, that we were counting on,” Parcells said. “And we’ve really gotten very little out of those guys at this point.”

Ram Notes

One Giant off to a fast start is receiver Lionel Manuel, who has 19 receptions and 3 touchdowns in 3 games. He may be a problem for Ram cornerback LeRoy Irvin, who has a strained calf but said he’ll be ready to go. Guard Duval Love (sprained ankle) should also start. . . . Now this, from the 10-minute Dickerson trade ticker: Greg Bell, a throw-in in the blockbuster trade last year, is the NFL’s third-leading rusher. The Colts, since acquiring Dickerson, are 6-7. Bell is averaging 4.8 yards a carry, Dickerson 4.6. . . . Gary Jeter leads the NFL in sacks with 6.5. His 5 last week fell 1 short of the NFL single-game record, set by San Francisco’s Fred Dean in 1983. . . . More about Jeter: He was the Giants’ No. 1 draft choice in 1977 and played there until 1982. He’ll be matched today against his old buddy, left guard Bill Ard. “We really used to go at it in practice,” Jeter said. “He knows everything I do, and I know everything he does.”