Ram Concerns Center Around the Corners : Pro football: Gray has moved to free safety and Irvin is gone. So Henley, Jackson and Humphery must fill the gap at cornerback.
The Rams, who have started the same two cornerbacks in almost every game since 1986, are starting over at the position this season in a move that no doubt will be monitored from here to Joe Montana.
Jerry Gray and LeRoy Irvin totaled six Pro Bowl appearances in their four years as opposite corners, but they are together no more. Gray, who has made four consecutive Pro Bowl appearances as a corner--he was the MVP in last year’s game--is moving to free safety. Irvin was released last spring after 10 years with the team.
In their place, the Rams counter with Darryl Henley, scorched more than once as a rookie last season; Alfred (A.J.) Jackson, a wide receiver at San Diego State just two seasons ago, and Bobby Humphery, acquired on draft day from the New York Jets for a fifth-round choice.
So is this any way to challenge the world champion 49ers?
Henley, 23, played in 15 games last season but started none. He remembers having more than a few lost weekends.
“For me, it was 23 weeks,” he said. “From Tokyo (August) to Candlestick Park (January). The scary thing is I still have so much to learn.”
That, from the probable starting right corner in 1990.
Jackson, a fifth-round choice last year, has been a real discovery, but no one expected him to be unveiled this quickly. Jackson played in seven games as a rookie but, like Henley, has yet to make his first NFL start.
Jackson was switched from corner to receiver after his freshman year at San Diego State. He said he was shocked when the Rams drafted him and announced he was switching to defense.
“I never thought about being a defensive back,” he said. “It never crossed my mind.”
Humphery, who turns 29 next month, provides veteran leadership, but even he comes to the Rams with mixed reviews.
“Bobby will be nursing us,” Henley said, noting the age gap.
Such a commitment to change at corner may seem a dangerous course, but the Rams are diving in headfirst.
“It comes down to sink or swim,” Henley said. “I plan on swimming.”
The notion of playing two inexperienced corners, and winning, is not unprecedented. In 1986, San Francisco won the NFC’s Western Division with rookies Don Griffin and Tim McKyer starting on the corners. An even better example was 1981, when the 49ers won the Super Bowl with rookies Ronnie Lott and Eric Wright.
Robinson is rolling the dice and hoping his young players will answer a similar challenge.
Said Henley: “Coach Robinson told me that I’m no longer 23. He said, ‘You’ve got to play like a 29-year-old veteran.’ ”
Despite Henley’s problems in 1989, Robinson said he has no doubt the former UCLA star can take over.
“The only thing he’s lacking is bulk,” Robinson said of Henley, who is 5-feet-9 and 170 pounds. “But I think he’s one of those guys who bounces. He doesn’t seem to get hurt. Last year, he had a couple thrown over his head. When you play that position, you have to come out and be a competitive, in-your-face kind of guy. When you’re in a guy’s face and suddenly you’re looking at his back, it’s discouraging.”
Henley, who played corner at UCLA, is much more experienced at the position than Jackson, who remains a mystery to most.
“He has great size (6-foot, 180 pounds) for the position, just perfect,” Robinson said of Jackson. “He has natural instincts for the ball. He can catch the ball, judge it in air. He’s like a basketball player. . . . He doesn’t have that quick, cat-like speed like Darryl Henley, but he takes longer strides and can cover ground and make up for it. I think they’re both very talented.”
Robinson is hedging on whom his two starters will be, saying only that “all three will play.”
Ram Notes
Someone asked Coach John Robinson this week if he thought the Rams had closed the gap on their divisional rivals, San Francisco. His response: “Well, we got a new cornerback (Bobby Humphery), a new quarterback (Chuck Long), a new guard (Joe Milinichik), a new tailback (Curt Warner); we drafted a new center in the first round (Bern Brostek), a new safety (Pat Terrell). Yeah, I’d say those were significant things.”
Brostek and Terrell, of course, remain unsigned, prompting an annual Robinson critique of the draft choice signing process. “Obviously, it’s destructive to everyone if (a player) holds out,” Robinson said. “Except the agent. It’s not destructive to the agent. The system we have is ludicrous, crazy; that we’re paying kids all this money and they don’t come to training camp.” Robinson’s point is that almost all top-round holdouts essentially forfeit their rookie seasons as a result.
Free agent wide receiver Anthony Sargent will be out a week or two with a hamstring pull, inspiring this one-liner from Robinson: “If it takes more than a week, he’ll become a corporal.”
