Robinson Wants to Prevent Any Troubles
John Robinson remembers standing on the sideline in New England’s Sullivan Stadium Sunday and thinking how warm his boots were. With a windchill of minus 20 degrees, the Ram coach might have been the only person in the place with toasty tootsies.
But the Rams are a team that could give you cold feet if you’re standing barefoot on a Las Vegas parking lot in August. And all of sudden, the Rams were in their prevent zone defense and Robinson was lost in the Twilight Zone. . . again.
On the final play of the Rams’ 24-20 victory, Patriot quarterback Steve Grogan stood frozen in time on the frozen turf, waiting patiently to send an arrow that would pierce the Rams’ playoff hopes. When he finally let loose, the ball slipped from the grasp of Hart Lee Dykes, who was balancing along the end line of the end zone.
“Now would that have been something (if Dykes had made the catch) and they went to instant replay?” Robinson asked, contemplating the thought in horror. “Four or five minutes after the game’s over, they let you know if you’ve made the playoffs or not.”
It would have been the quintessential culmination of the Rams’ 1989 season.
Robinson knows it should never have come down to that longest second. He knows the Rams should not have needed an 80-yard touchdown drive in the last few minutes to rally for the lead.
But somehow he knew it would.
“At the end, these games go crazy,” he said, sounding resigned to his fate. “It’s hard for me to define how that game wound up the way it did. We certainly could have put it away in the first half, been ahead by 17 or 20 points. But we didn’t.
“We’re a club that has produced a tremendous amount of excitement. Certainly, there can’t be a club that has done any more in the last parts of the game, both plus and minus.”
So Robinson watched reruns of this week’s adventure and searched for clues to unlock the mystery of his team’s propensity for anxiety.
“We’re describing an intangible thing here and I don’t want to try to make the intangible tangible,” he said. “It’s kind of a feeling that there’s some resource we can fall back on. But we also seem to find times of apathy.”
Is it apathy or inability? Isn’t all this suspense rooted in a poor defense?
The Rams are 21st in the NFL in overall defense and last in pass defense. And, as any Ram fan will tell you, they lead in only one category: Most Frustrating Defense.
Just where did this prevent defense get its name? What exactly does it prevent?
Certainly not gray hairs.
Robinson points out that injuries to key defensive players have limited his options, but he still defends the three-man-rush/eight-man-zone philosophy.
“We made them go the long way,” he said of New England’s final drive.
OK, so the Patriots went 59 yards in less than two minutes. And they needed 63.
“We were backed up again,” Robinson admitted. “I would like to put a lot of pressure on teams, but our inside pass rush is not good now. We’ve got a bunch of 230-pounders ricocheting around in there.
“The thing I get sensitive about is people saying you’re doing the wrong thing by just rushing three people. I find myself defending the prevent-type defense and never being able to convey to anybody that, ‘Yeah, you’re right, it doesn’t work sometimes.’ But the alternative doesn’t always work, either.
“They always say, ‘What you should’ve done is covered all their guys man-to-man and rushed the passer and sacked him!’ And you say to yourself, ‘Boy, is that a good idea.’ ”
The Rams play a lot of zone defense because they don’t have many defensive backs who can cover the league’s top receivers one-on-one. And, since a quarterback normally releases the ball in about three seconds whether he’s pressured or not, Robinson opts for one more man clogging seams in the zone and one less chasing the passer.
He admits that the temptation to blitz is always there, but he won’t give in, taking strength from his rock-solid beliefs. . . . sort of.
“It’s frustrating,” he says. “It’s hard on the stomach. You want to say, ‘Oh crap, rush him.’ But if (the quarterback’s) good, when you blitz, he puts it up and you get burned. You have to do what you’re capable of.
“It’s agonizing, but it’s what we’re stuck with.”
The Ram offense, however, has been the source of much optimism. The Rams are second in the league in scoring. Still, not many coaches go into the playoffs with such a low-rated defense and such high hopes.
Robinson says he believes this team can go to the Super Bowl.
“Maybe that’s a dumb statement, but I just like this team,” he said. “I think we expect to win. Every time we’ve lost, we were surprised. I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.”
With Greg Bell running well and Jim Everett still coming through on the big plays, the Rams are feeling pretty good about the future.
Taking a there’s-always-next-year attitude might not be too wise.
In addition to the usual home-and-away series with San Francisco, Atlanta and New Orleans, the Rams’ 1990 schedule will include home games against Philadelphia, the New York Giants, Dallas, Houston and Cincinnati. They will travel to Green Bay, Chicago, Tampa Bay, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Six of those teams are in the playoffs this season and two more just missed making it.
Ram Notes
Cornerback Cliff Hicks’ knee is getting worse and Robinson said, “We anticipate Cliff has had it for the rest of the season and we’ll take him off the roster.” Safety James Washington will be activated to take his place. . . Defensive linemen Mike Piel (elbow) and Shawn Miller (groin pull) are questionable for Sunday’s wild-card game against Philadelphia. . . The Last Word on the Cold War: “Weather is not an issue anymore,” Robinson said. “I know exactly where my overcoat is now. It was in the wrong closet and I had to look all over the house for it last Friday. You see, you may be determined not to be intimidated by the cold, but you can still be distracted by the cold. But now, if it’s cold, we’ll say, ‘Geez, it’s cold.’ But everyone knows where the scarves are now.”