Gray’s Safety Is Return to Defensive Roots : Pro football: After making the Pro Bowl team at cornerback for four seasons, Ram veteran goes back to the position he played in college.
Jerry Gray has a confession. For five seasons he’s been living a lie. He’s masqueraded as a cornerback all these years with the Rams and only complicated his plight by making the Pro Bowl four consecutive times.
Maybe that was his first mistake. He became too good at the wrong job and was left to both succeed and die there. Gray was an All-American safety at the University of Texas and a first-round draft choice in 1985. When the Rams sent him to his corner as a rookie, Gray bit down hard on his lip and did what was asked, waiting for the day when the Rams would send him back to his rightful place.
“I always felt like I was caged playing corner,” Gray said. “I felt like I was limited to only one side of the field.”
The Rams say this is the season Gray returns to free safety. No fooling. They said it last year, too, but this time it’s for real. The job changes have been posted.
It’s a gamble, sure. With Gray gone, the Rams are left to fight the league with one veteran cornerback--Bobby Humphery--and two players, A.J. Jackson and Darryl Henley, who are eager to make their first NFL starts.
The temptation, of course, will be to move Gray back after the first bombs have been lobbed, although Coach John Robinson assures all that this is a leap of faith, not a whim.
“We’re going with the three corners,” he said. “If we have injury or disaster hits us of any kind, natural or otherwise, we could go back to Jerry. I just can’t tell you anymore than that.”
The problem with leaving Gray on the corner is that opponents can--and have--effectively removed him from action.
In the days when LeRoy Irvin was in his prime, quarterbacks couldn’t pick on one side or another. But last year, with Irvin fading, teams took full advantage, consistently throwing away from Gray’s side of the field. After some games, they didn’t need to wash his uniform.
One Sunday against Green Bay last season, Gray remembers Packer star receiver, Sterling Sharpe, lining up on his side of the field just once in the game.
At safety, Gray will play off the quarterback’s eyes, not the receiver’s, which leaves him freedom to roam either side of the field.
Gray wants to become an intimidator on the level of San Francisco’s Ronnie Lott, who protects cornerbacks with his mere presence.
Gray, sounding a bit like Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, said he wants his young cornerbacks to trust in him.
“I want them to have the confidence to go, because I’ll be there,” Gray said. “On the post (pattern), I’ll be there. On all the deep routes, if I’m in the middle, I’ll be there.”
When Don Griffin and Tim McKyer were rookie corners for the (San Francisco) 49ers in 1986, Lott was there for them, covering their mistakes and tracks. Gray hopes to do the same for Henley and Jackson.
“When they first came to San Francisco, they hadn’t played anything,” Gray said of the 49er pair. “They just threw them in the fire and said, ‘Play.’ But you got Ronnie Lott back there.”
Gray would like to believe that playing safety is something you never forget, like riding a bicycle. He knows that’s not true, but he does have some time to work out the kinks.
“I know corner, all the little odds and ends,” he said. “I know how to cheat. That’s what I have to learn playing safety. I have the ability to play safety, but I have to learn how to cheat, how to read the quarterback. Once you get that down, you got it. That’s why I think Ronnie Lott’s so good. He sits back and he’s just as good as it gets, because he knows all the odds and ends.”
Gray, 27, hopes to be the glue that sticks his secondary together after last season’s 28th ranking against the pass. Of course, some of that blame goes to the pass rush, which often gave opposing quarterbacks too much time to wait for receivers to get open.
Still, the ranking is an eyesore for all Rams who knock down passes for a living.
“One thing I really don’t do is look at the rankings,” Gray said. “But you want to get it off your back. We beat New England, we beat Philadelphia, we beat the (New York) Giants. It really doesn’t bother you unless they bring it up, then you say, ‘I guess we really were that bad.’
“But we were in the NFC championship game, too. What we don’t want is everyone saying the offense is carrying the team. We want to have pride within ourselves. We don’t want to have a war against our offense, either.”
Interestingly, Gray’s move to safety may hurt his chances for a fifth consecutive Pro Bowl appearance, which would have probably been a lock had he stayed on the corner.
There are two reasons: Lott and Minnesota Viking safety Joey Browner. Barring injuries or a rare poor season, they figure to lock up the two starting spots, leaving Gray and others--Chicago’s Dave Duerson for one--to fight for the remaining spot.
“I don’t look at that as being the standard,” Gray said. “I think I’m probably just as good as those guys. And there’s room for one other guy. I think three guys go every year at safety. If you’re good and you have good stats, you’re going to be there.”
Ram Notes
Receiver Aaron Cox had a bad feeling before Friday’s practice and after running only three routes, he was feeling lousy indeed. And by Saturday morning, bad had turned to worse. Cox, who injured his right hamstring during training camp last year and lost his starting job to Flipper Anderson, pulled the hamstring again Friday. Saturday morning, he found out that the injury was more serious than first diagnosed. Cox could be out as long as six weeks, according to Coach John Robinson. “My legs were feeling kind of stiff before the practice, so I did some extra stretching,” Cox said. “Last year, I didn’t want to accept it, but this time I handled it better. I went back in (the locker room) and got my stuff together and, after a few minutes, I was all right with it. You have to put something like this into perspective. There are a lot of people out there with worse problems than a pulled hamstring. Even if I never play another down in football, I’ve been blessed.”
Nose tackle Alvin Wright’s quadriceps strain also has turned out to be more serious than the Rams first believed. He was originally scheduled to return to action Monday, but now will miss “at least a week,” Robinson said. . . .
