These 11 Can Make, Break Rams
Eleven Rams most assuredly on the spot as The Road to San Francisco and Then Cross Your Fingers begins today:
Curt Warner. The Rams ran Greg Bell out of town and for what? The answer wasn’t forthcoming this preseason, with John Robinson keeping Warner under tighter wraps than most ankle sprains. Warner carried the ball only 26 times in four exhibitions and when he did, he didn’t carry it far, netting 65 yards and a 2.5 average.
The 29-year-old former Seahawk All-Pro has looked more like Seattle Slow. Gaston Green, back from oblivion, outran and outplayed him all summer.
Robinson takes pain not to criticize Warner--he was, remember, the one who orchestrated the tailback switch--but his actions have spoken loudly. Robinson enters the regular season with a platoon at the tailback spot, the plan being to alternate Green, the bench-warming wonder, with Warner. If that’s not admitting defeat, it at least suggests why Seattle left Warner off its protected list last winter.
Deep down, Robinson is hopeful Warner emerges as his No. 1 back. Given a second option, Robinson is hopeful anyone eventually emerges.
Prediction: By midseason, Cleveland Gary will be Robinson’s man.
Jim Everett. If you’re only as good as your last game, Everett has spent the past seven months throwing interceptions and ducking 49er linemen. He has lived with a 30-3 loss through basketball season, through baseball season, to, at last, the brink of another NFL season.
Bring on the Packers already.
For Everett, 1990 will amount to a one-game season--the NFC championship game. Everything else is a prelim. Everett is capable of bringing the Rams back, but never before has he been so solely responsible. Without a sure-fire 1,000-yard back behind his tail, supported by a defense forever patching holes, Everett now carries the Rams the way Eric Dickerson, Roman Gabriel and few others have carried the Rams in the past.
Now, if can just carry them past San Francisco.
Bill Hawkins and Mike Piel. Is there a pass rush in the house? Last year, Hawkins and Piel, two rookie defensive tackles, were the hopes for the future, but now the future has arrived and where are Hawkins and Piel?
On the second team.
Both have been slow to recover from off-season surgery, which is why they open will the season behind Alvin Wright and Brian Smith. If they don’t come back, what’s to stop the Ram defense from finishing 21st again?
Keith English. After Hank Ilesic and Kent Elmore waged a late summer shank-off that made one wistful for the days of John Misko, the Rams traded for English, the backup punter at San Diego. English, the man who followed Barry Helton’s All-American footsteps at the University of Colorado, did the job last week in Washington--he might have been the only one--by averaging 41.1 yards on six punts, including a 50-yarder.
Now, he has to keep the job.
Vince Newsome and Michael Stewart. They are the safeties, strong and free, although on a team that placed 28th against the pass in 1989--and only 28 teams defend against the pass in the NFL--that isn’t saying much.
Robinson gave his all trying to give Stewart’s slot to Jerry Gray, but then the cornerbacks began dropping, which forced Gray back to corner before he finally dropped too. Stewart held out all camp, which didn’t advance his remedial pass-coverage work, and Newsome, who missed all of 1988 with a dangerous neck injury, continues to risk life and career every time he makes a hit.
Not much safety in this line of work.
Bobby Humphery and Anthony Newman. Cornerbacks for a day--or maybe longer, depending on the recuperative ability of Gray, Darryl Henley and Alfred Jackson.
Humphery, a converted wide receiver, is also a converted New York Jet, a Ram by way of Dick Steinberg’s housecleaning movement. “The word disseminating from the Jets is that the guy can’t cover,” Robinson says. “And he can’t.” Oh boy. But Robinson insists on explaining himself.
“All of us talk about ‘cover corners’ and all of us have maybe seen three of them in our lives,” Robinson says. “There aren’t many guys out there who hold up their hand and say, ‘I got Jerry Rice.’ No, they’re saying, ‘. . . get over and help me.’
“We’ve grown up with this mystique about corners who have to cover. Once you get past that and look at guys who are athletes, who can run, who you can put in a zone, those are guys who can play corner.”
Newman, moving over from safety, is another “non-cover corner,” according to the Robinson vernacular. Non-coverage or not, both of them are now a part of the fray and they must find a way to stop Anthony Dilweg and maybe Don Majkowski and maybe some more after that.
Frank Stams. The man who would be Larry Kelm. That’s a lot to ask, considering what Kelm means to the Ram run defense, but that’s exactly what the Rams are asking for the next four to six weeks.
John Robinson. Sports Illustrated picks the Rams to go all the way. Uh-oh.
If he only had a defense and an owner named Eddie.