Returns Are In: Rams’ Henley Puts On a Pretty Good Show, Too

Since Deion Sanders has cornered the market on Prime Time--he has his own triangle logo, complete with lightning bolt--Ram players seized the next available time slot and nicknamed their rookie punt returner, Darryl Henley, Late Night.

It easily bested another suggestion, Local Cable.

Sunday, the two players will meet for the second time in less than a month when the Atlanta Falcons visit Anaheim Stadium.

Of course, it’s more than just the Falcons coming to town. With Sanders in the fold now, it’s a rolling river revue. All that glitters is not gold anymore, it’s also Deion.

Henley’s nickname could not have been more appropriate. Everyone knows late night follows prime time. It’s that way on television and it best describes the relationship of Sanders and Henley, contemporaries in college at Florida State and UCLA, but more than miles apart in stature, really.

“Of course, it just . . . me off,” Henley said of their college rivalry. “The first two games (last season, against San Diego State and Nebraska) I scored touchdowns. People knew who I was, but I wasn’t Prime Time.”

Is anyone? Sanders has been showing people up for years, but it’s more difficult to take when you’re in the same profession, and now, the same division.

“I hate to see him run back punts,” Henley said. “Hate it. It’s like somebody putting a knife in my back.”

Why?

“Because it’s Deion,” Henley said. “I think it just goes back to college. Maybe I have more of a thing with it than he does, ‘cause he’s always been on top. But I hate it. It’s painful to watch in person, up close.”

Henley returned two punts for touchdowns last season at UCLA. Sanders returned one for Florida State. But next to the Neon, Henley might as well have been settling for fair catches all year.

No one is beginning to compare the players as athletes or cornerbacks.

“I like my guy,” Coach John Robinson said of Henley, the last of three second-round Ram picks in 1989.

“But Deion was one of the highest-rated cornerbacks coming out of college ever. As punt returners they’re comparable.”

But with all of Sanders’ pomp and jewelry, who would have believed that?

National Football League statistics don’t lie, though. Through four weeks, Henley, not Sanders, is the league’s leading punt returner with a 17.8-yard average. Sanders is second at 15.6.

Yet, Henley isn’t about to go around with a sound truck and announce it.

“There aren’t a whole lot of guys here that know that,” Henley said of his ranking. “They think, ‘Oh, he’s a pretty good punt returner.’ I think I’m a damn good punt returner. And maybe one more guy on the team knows that.”

Even so, Henley vs. Sanders is always a mismatch, no matter the numbers. When the two squared off in Atlanta on Sept. 10, Henley never had a chance. Sanders, who had signed about 72 hours before the kickoff, first stirred the crowd with arm-waving gyrations, then delivered on a 68-yard punt return for a touchdown.

Quietly, Henley had returns of 25 and 16 yards, and disappeared into the landscape Sanders had painted.

“When he scored in the end zone, he looked over to me to make sure I was looking at him,” Henley recalled.

Henley’s 25-yard return barely nudged the needle on the Deion-O-Meter. The Ram punt returner never considered a return glance.

“I didn’t get in the end zone,” he said. “You’ve got to get in the end zone.”

Henley and Sanders actually are casual friends, having met on the banquet circuit after last season. Before the opener, in fact, Sanders visited Henley at the Rams’ hotel.

“He said, ‘You know, I’m going to have to light it up tomorrow,’ ” Henley said of the conversation.

“And I said, ‘You’d better watch out. We got some boys that can cover.’ Then, after the game, he just gave me one of those looks. And I said, ‘You’ve got to come to my house.’ We’re all like that, especially the guys you came out with and competed with through college.”

Henley says Sanders is nothing like his image and, surprise, he put on his Prime Time act to promote himself during negotiations, hoping more publicity would reap a better harvest.

Henley said he didn’t mind Sanders’ histrionics, compared to others, such as Oklahoma’s Brian Bosworth.

He said there’s a difference.

“Prime Time backs everything up,” Henley said. “One thing Prime Time hasn’t done is put his foot in his mouth. Everything he said he was going to do, he’s done it.”

Henley says the Sanders he knows is quiet and reserved, much the person who is just now climbing back into his shell in Atlanta.

“A lot of people don’t understand that Deion’s cool,” Henley said. “It’s not like oh, ‘I’m Prime Time.’ When I see him on TV, I say, ‘This can’t be the same cat I talked to. Then you sit back and realize: They’re eating out of his hands. I wish my personality allowed me to stand out there in front of 60 grand and wave my hands.”

Late Night and Prime Time plan to have dinner Friday evening. Sanders will no doubt ask Henley how it is he’s getting more playing time. Sanders has been down lately, admitting this week that he’s tired of just returning kicks.

“I never sat on the bench for anyone in my whole life,” Sanders said.

Henley wishes Sanders well, as long as second place in the NFL punt-return race doesn’t bother him.

So beating Sanders means everything? “It’d be damn important,” Henley said.

Ram Notes

Deion Sanders was working at left cornerback Thursday and may play in more pass defense schemes against the Rams. Atlanta Coach Marion Campbell also had a little talk with left cornerback Bobby Butler, leading some to speculate that Sanders would take over as a starter within a couple of weeks. . . . Greg Bell missed practice Thursday because of the flu. For what it’s worth, he was also ill the week before the Green Bay game on Sept. 24, but gained a career-high 221 yards rushing against the Packers. . . . Snapper Mike McDonald had a metal fleck removed from his right eye by team ophthalmologist James Boyce, and also missed practice. His bandage will be removed today and McDonald is expected to play Sunday.