NOTEBOOK : Ellard Displays His Forward-Flip Form, Executes a Perfect ‘10’

Sure, Henry Ellard has caught 61 passes for 1,176 yards and eight touchdowns, but until Sunday’s game against the Phoenix Cardinals, there was a void in his season.

And then, late in the fourth quarter, Ellard caught a Jim Everett pass across the middle and ran in for a 42-yard touchdown.

And Ellard kept running, and running . . .

“I said, ‘Man, what are you doing?’ ” receiver Ron Brown said. “He said, ‘I’m going to flip.’ So I backed off and said, ‘Be my guest.’ ”

Ellard accepted the invitation, and executed an impressive forward flip, a signature move that had been lacking from his repertoire this season.

“I’d say it was a 9.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.0, 9.0,” Ellard said.

Someone quipped that the East German judge was probably to blame for the 8.5 mark.

Brown, however, was much more generous.

“That was a 10, definitely,” he said. “He had a nice tuck, good height on the jump and a good landing. I was impressed.”

Brown, known more for his kickoff returns, got his first and second receptions of the season.

“We’ve got so many good receivers on this team that you’ve kind of got to wait your turn,” Brown said.

Asked if he could flip if he scored, Brown said, yes, but, “that’s Henry’s thing, I wouldn’t want to cut in.”

Proving once again to be one of the most misleading statistics in football, the Rams throttled Phoenix, 37-14, but beat the Cardinals in time of possession by less than a minute.

The Rams had the ball for 30:26; the Cardinals 29:34.

Quarterback Timm Rosenbach, a rookie picked by the Cardinals in the supplemental draft from Washington State, made his first appearance in an NFL game.

“I knew it was either going to happen in a game that we were blowing someone out, or in one that we were getting blown out,” Rosenbach said. “It’s unfortunate it had to happen under these circumstances, but I was glad to get the experience.”

Rosenbach said he was nervous before taking his first snap early in the fourth quarter.

“I was shaking like crazy, I’m still shaking,” he said.

Rosenbach was so pumped for the chance, that on his first pass attempt, he overthrew receiver Ernie Jones by about 10 feet.

“I got hit with a pretty good lick on that play,” Rosenbach said. “It was like, ‘Welcome to the NFL.’ ”

Rosenbach settled down enough to have a pretty good quarter. He completed seven of 14 passes for 81 yards and guided the Cardinals on a 51-yard touchdown drive. He completed three passes for 50 yards, was sacked once for a loss of 11, and ran once for eight yards.

“I was just running around like a chicken with his head cut off,” Rosenbach said. “I was trying to have fun.”

Rosenbach’s poultry performance did rank him with running back Tony Jordan as the Cardinals leading rusher in the game. Each had 18 yards.

Phoenix starting quarterback Gary Hogeboom was pulled by Coach Gene Stallings early in the second half.

Hogeboom, who entered the game with a pass-completion percentage of 57%, but had thrown more interceptions (13) than touchdowns (10), asked Stallings, “What did I do?”

Apparently not enough.

Hogeboom completed six of 10 passes for 48 yards, but threw two interceptions, including one to Michael Stewart, who returned it 41 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter.

There was Tony Dorsett, who decided after a trip to Paris between his junior and senior seasons at the University of Pittsburgh that his name would not be pronounced DOR-sit, but dor-SET.

There was Joe Theismann, who went from THEES-men, to THIGHS-men (rhymes with Heisman, as in trophy).

And now there is Ram running back Robert (call me Bobby) Delpino.

Delpino, who has been called Robert all of his life, said he might as well become Bobby since that’s what coaches and teammates insist on calling him.

And as someone pointed out, Bobby is a much more appropriate for someone who makes his living butting heads.