Rams Look Good, but Not Yet Super
Excuse me if I don’t dye my dog blue and gold just yet, but there remain some nagging questions about the much-ballyhooed and undefeated Rams.
Like, aren’t there 12 more games to be played, including a murderous little stretch that includes the Buffalo Bills (at Buffalo), New Orleans Saints, Chicago Bears (at Chicago), Minnesota Vikings (at Minneapolis) and New York Giants? And has everyone conveniently forgotten that the Rams could be 2-2, not 4-0, if Brent Fullwood hadn’t fumbled away the Green Bay Packers’ chances on the goal line two weeks ago or Tom Rathman, a non-fumbler since an exhibition game in 1986, hadn’t coughed up the ball at the Ram 19 and cost the San Francisco 49ers a likely scoring drive with 2:59 remaining in Sunday’s game?
Victory is sweet and the Rams deserve to sun themselves in the attention that comes with four consecutive victories. But the trick, of course, is to do it without getting burned.
In this case, the Rams are safe. They have won games, but hardly in convincing fashion. They beat the Atlanta Falcons by 10, the Indianapolis Colts by 14, the Packers by three and the 49ers by one. They are exciting, intriguing and talented, but then again, so were last year’s Rams and look what happened to them: four consecutive victories to begin the season followed by losses in six of their next nine games.
Somebody ought to inform Ram-mania organizers that not even Coach John Robinson is convinced this team has what it takes. Good? Sure, Robinson will admit that his ’89 Rams are the most versatile and most potent offensive team he has had since his arrival six seasons ago.
But good enough to win a Super Bowl? Uh . . .
“We’re not much different this week than the team that we were last week,” Robinson said. “I think there comes a fantasy that suddenly this team has arrived. In the intangible sense, maybe it has taken some real strides. But in the regular sense, we just took a couple of baby steps forward, which is OK. But we got to take a . . . lot more of them if we’re going to be what we can be.”
What they can be and what they are now are two very different things.
Can be: Who knows . . . 13-3, 12-4, undefeated?
This is a team that possesses several of the key ingredients for a championship season. They have a quarterback who is at the edge of entering the league’s elite. They have an offensive line that protects him. They have a running back who fills most of Robinson’s rushing criteria. They have a wide receiver who is among the game’s best. They have a kicker who relishes pressure. They have an H-back who drops passes every autumnal equinox. They have two Pro Bowl cornerbacks.
If ever a team was on the brink of breaking through, this is the one.
Is now: The Rams have all of the aforementioned weapons, but they also have their share of concerns. The secondary has been victimized in three of the Rams’ four games. The inside linebacking position has been unsettled because of injuries to Larry Kelm and Fred Strickland. The defensive line is solid but not spectacular. The running back position, a spot given to punishment and injury, will continue to be a bit thin until Cleveland Gary is integrated into the offense. And finally, the schedule doesn’t exactly work in the Rams’ favor.
I’m not the only one who believes that Ram hotel reservations for the Jan. 28 Super Bowl are a bit premature. The opinion also is shared by none other than Robinson himself.
“I’m certainly not trying to poor-mouth us or anything like that, but that’s kind of how it is,” he said. “I have confidence we can improve, but I certainly realize it’s a long ways away.
“That’s why I think we have to be so focused on just trying to get better as rapidly as we can and not pretend that there’s some magic involved and we’re some team of destiny. We’re just some guys slopping around on grass trying to arrive.”
Robinson has a tendency to slightly bend the truth on occasion. The 0-4 Dallas Cowboys are a team slopping around on the grass. The Rams, however, are a team positioned, perhaps, for a special season.
Of course, lots of things have to happen, beginning with Sunday’s game against the Falcons at Anaheim Stadium. The Rams can’t lose it, simple as that. If they do, they negate almost everything gained by their come-from-behind victory over the 49ers.
There are four other opponents (the Cowboys, the New York Jets, the New England Patriots and the Phoenix Cardinals) similar to the Falcons; teams that are capable of beating the Rams, but probably won’t. These are the games the Rams should win, must win, if they expect to visit the Superdome in late January.
And, said Robinson, it would be comforting to see the Ram defense reassert itself on a weekly basis. A shutout would be nice, but anything resembling marked improvement would be acceptable.
“I would feel better if we could snuff anybody out,” Robinson said. “I would like us to be better defensively than we are.”
The Rams aren’t the ’72 Miami Dolphins, but they’re not bad. In fact, many more victories such as Sunday’s and they might earn another believer. And won’t that be colorful news for the pooch.