Rams Are for Real--at Least for This Week
It looks as if Pete Rozelle is finally going to get his wish, that the National Football League has at last achieved the blissful state of Nirvana-ish parity that it has been seeking for years.
The football season, two Sundays from now, will come down to this: The schedule played out and 28 teams waiting breathlessly for mathematicians from MIT to compute the playoff pairings.
That’s not to sell short the gutty little Rams, who crushed the gutted little Chicago Bears Monday night, 23-3.
It was a methodical and convincing Rams’ win, their most impressive performance of the season.
But when a proven powerhouse such as the Bears, with an 11-2 record, can get thrashed by a team that has lost four in a row and seemingly had nothing to live for save next year’s draft, it leaves the impression that the league has achieved parity. Or chaos.
You tend to start believing that there are no absolutes, no discernible trends, that nothing is as it seems or as it was 5 minutes ago. Dynasties are a week-to-week proposition.
Monday night’s game, though, actually demonstrated that there are several things in the NFL that are as absolute as the sunrise.
Such as:
You really need a quarterback.
If the Rams didn’t prove this through the Dieter Brock years, they proved it Monday night.
Jim Everett, who still hasn’t quite broken through that barrier between goodness and greatness, is at least an efficient quarterback. Monday he was 17 for 31 for 251 yards and a touchdown.
And once again Everett demonstrated the greatest talent an NFL quarterback today can possess--the ability to go long. That is, to last the entire ballgame without breaking something.
These days, it’s not just a good thing to have a healthy first-string quarterback. It’s a miracle.
Chicago, on the other hand, was featuring its third-string quarterback, Jim Harbaugh, in a starting role. He was miscast. And had Harbaugh been unable for any reason to fulfill his duties as Mr. Quarterback, the Bears would have trotted out Ben Bennett, the pride of the Arena Football League.
John Robinson is a genius.
In a quiet halftime ceremony, Mensa inducted Jolly John. Any coach who could inspire such a downtrodden team as the Rams to such a clutch performance has incredible mental powers.
Of course, genius football coaches, like chronic drug abusers, have to be re-tested every week, as they are subject to violent IQ swings.
An offense must establish its passing game in order for the running game to be effective.
The experts say it’s the other way around, but what do they know?
Monday night Everett and the Rams consistently used the pass as a staple of their attack, a mainstay that set up the running game.
On the Rams’ first touchdown drive, which gave them a 13-3 lead at the end of the third quarter, Everett completed passes of 15, 16 and 31 yards. Ram runners accounted for 4 yards on that 66-yard drive. Why fool around with running when you can fly?
The Rams are for real.
You don’t fluke out against the Bears, not 23-3.
“We are a dominant team in the NFL,” defensive end Gary Jeter said. “We may not be able to show the world that (if they don’t make the playoffs), but we are. We look at the films and we’re not getting pushed around. We never get pushed around; we just made mental mistakes (the previous 4 games).”
Heart attacks can be healthy.
When Bear Coach Mike Ditka talks about his “mild heart attack,” he makes it sound almost relaxing.
Monday night, a few short weeks after experiencing his heart attack, Ditka was on the sidelines, rosy-cheeked and remarkably calm.
The one-time chronic blow-top apparently has harnessed his negative vibes. It is an impressive change of temperament. For the too-tightly-wound, the mild heart attack might soon replace est and transcendental meditation.
Don’t try it without a doctor’s supervision, but Ditka seems to have significantly reduced his stress with a workout program consisting of a 3-mile jog, weightlifting, a steam bath and a light heart attack.
There are dangerous side effects, however. Since his attack, Ditka has been nice to everyone, including reporters. This may indicate that the heart attack affected his mental equilibrium.
You really need a wide receiver.
The Rams had had one for years in Henry Ellard. But until this season, they jerked Henry around like a balky mule, trying to penny-pinch him, inspiring long salary holdouts that really hurt the team.
This year they paid Henry, he came to camp early and healthy, and he is truly one of the league’s best, one of the very few wide receivers who can run and catch.
Going into the game Ditka said of his defensive backs, “That’s our job, to find out where (Ellard) is at.”
They found him, but they couldn’t catch him. Ellard caught 6 passes for 130 yards and turned a boring field-goal kickoff into a real football game.
You can take the Bear out of Chicago, but it’s a bad idea.
The Bears simply can’t play in sissy weather that invariably plagues the greater L.A. area. The Bears play best on frozen tundra, kissed by snow and freezing wind. This balmy stuff seems to sap the meanness right out of them.
They return to Chicago consoled by the fact that they lost to one of the league’s dominant teams, a Demember dynasty.
The Rams are for real, although in the NFL, reality can be fleeting.