Hebert Pokes Bigger Holes Through an Already Porous Defense

It’s best known for its Eagle formation, but the Rams’ defense Sunday should have been called the “Beagle.”

It was that sorry-looking.

“It was very embarrassing, very disheartening,” cornerback LeRoy Irvin said after the Rams’ 40-21 loss to New Orleans.

Or, if that’s not succinct enough, how about this assessment from Coach John Robinson: “We stunk.”

Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert threw just seven incompletions--and most of those came when his receivers lost their footing on the sloppy Anaheim Stadium turf. New Orleans receivers found seams in the Rams’ zone big enough to fly blimps through, and Hebert finished his day’s work by connecting on 15 of 22 passes for 276 yards and three touchdowns.

Five Saints had receptions of 17 yards or longer. Eric Martin caught five passes for 116 yards, including a 51-yarder and a 37-yard touchdown reception. Floyd Turner had a 54-yard touchdown catch. And Dalton Hilliard caught a short pass and turned it into a 20-yard touchdown play.

The Rams, who came into the game last in the National Football League in pass defense, secured their position with another dreadful performance. Their bend-but-don’t-break, containment-oriented zone defense snapped again, this time crumbling much quicker than it had last Monday in Buffalo.

When it comes to surviving aerial attacks, Dresden fared better than the Rams did Sunday.

“We clearly have some problems in the pass defense game,” Robinson said. “We tried to respond to it this week, but we obviously have some ground to go in that department.”

But where do you place the blame? Is it the Rams’ defensive game plan? Are the defensive backs at fault? Is the lack of a decent pass rush at the heart of the problem?

“It was a group loss,” Irvin said. “Every guy on the defense contributed to this loss. I know I did.

“I think the defensive line and the defensive secondary need to go to a marriage counselor. You just can’t divorce those two aspects of the game. It’s easy to point fingers, but you just can’t separate the scheme, the pass rush and the coverage.”

That pretty much sums up the way most of the Ram defensive players felt. Linebacker Kevin Greene, who was credited with half of the one sack the Rams got Sunday (which came with less than three minutes to play in the game), agreed with Irvin’s observation.

“Right now, both the pass rush and the pass coverage are sucking wind,” he said. “We didn’t get any kind of pass rush and you saw what happened. They beat us.”

Hebert escaped the little Ram rush there was and came up with big plays on a number of occasions, but the Saints’ passing game was primarily oriented around fast-developing, short-pass plays.

“The Rams play a zone with three or four rushers and they drop seven or eight (into pass coverage),” Hebert said. “We didn’t want to force anything, only to be patient.”

But Hebert didn’t waste much time taking advantage of the Rams’ defensive disarray. He completed six of his first seven passes and the Saints led, 33-7, almost before the echoes from the Cal State Long Beach band’s halftime performance had subsided.

“The ball’s coming out of there quick,” Greene said, “before the pass rush has time to develop.”

It may not be all the Rams’ fault, though. Linebacker Mel Owens thinks opponents are having better success against the Eagle defense because they have become more familiar with it.

“They’re experimenting more to see what adjustments we make to certain situations when we’re in the Eagle,” he said. “And we’ve got a lot of new faces out there. This defense used to be full of veterans, but now we have a lot of guys put in positions where they are brand new.

“We’re going to have to learn to play together.”

While admitting that there is merit to that line of reasoning, cornerback Jerry Gray would like to stress the importance of a more personal approach.

“This was very disgusting,” he said. “What we need is for all 47 players to start taking this kind of thing personally. There is something deep down in you and you have to find a way to get it out.”

Whatever the answer, the Rams better find it in a hurry. With the Bears, Vikings and Giants looming ahead on the schedule, a new defensive attitude--and a few deflected passes--could go a long way toward reducing the humility level and preventing a big-time slide in the standings.