COMMENTARY : Gary Finds Hero to Goat Is a Fumble Away
Drop a football, drop a game, drop a name. It happened again Sunday afternoon to Cleveland Gary, who took a handoff from Jim Everett, broke left for the end zone but could outrun neither Dallas linebacker Ken Norton nor Gary’s new-found reputation as the Wendell Tyler of his generation.
Tyler was a swift little Ram tailback noted for what he consumed before games (chili dogs, all the works) and what consumed him during them (fumbles).
Fumbles continue to follow Gary wherever he may roam. There were three last month in Pittsburgh.
But those, more or less, were bricks in the wall that collapsed on the Rams during a 41-10 Monday night massacre. Sunday, Gary and the Rams had victory in their grasp, the rarest of collectibles, before Gary left the football on the ground and the Rams below it.
Norton, son of the former heavyweight champion, popped Gary just like Pop, sending the tailback flying one way and the football the other. This happened at the Dallas five-yard line with less than 10 minutes left in a 21-21 game.
“I thought we had them, 28-21,” Everett said. “I thought we were going to pound it in right there. I never thought we were not going to be able to score.”
Unfortunately for Everett, he had a second thought. It came to him right after Norton flopped on the loose ball for a recovery that snuffed out the Ram hopes and set up Dallas’ drive to the game-winning field goal.
“Just another time when we self-destructed,” Everett said. “Very typical of the way things are going.”
Going for the goal line, Gary was going for hero. Already, he’d rushed for 100 yards. Already, he’d rushed for three touchdowns--the entirety of the Ram offense on an off-tackle kind of day.
Gary had given the Rams a 7-0 lead--their first first-quarter lead this month--on a 16-yard burst through the Cowboy line.
He had given the Rams a 14-7 lead with a four-yard run in the second quarter.
He had forged a 21-21 tie with a cannonball flop from a yard out in the third quarter, climaxing a drive in which the Rams gained all of their 76 yards on the ground.
This was football the way it oughta be, by John Robinson decree.
This was football the way the Rams hadn’t played it since the last time Eric Dickerson was happy.
This was football for winners . . . until Gary turned it into football for beginners.
Robinson looked near apoplectic after the 24-21 defeat, the Rams’ seventh in 10 attempts.
“Again, our football team seems unable to do the things we have to do to win football games,” Robinson said, his voice drained of emotion. “We’re not catching a lot of breaks, but that’s not the issue here.
“The issue here is that whenever it comes down to it, we let the ball bounce the wrong way. We do whatever it is that adds to the negative part of the situation we’re in. . . .
“Clearly, we were going to score, and (instead) we let them go 90-some yards for a field goal. Clearly, that was the turning point in the game.”
Gary wasn’t about to shoulder all the blame--”We win as a team, we lose as a team,” he said--but he didn’t shrug away his portion of it, either.
“I was just trying to make a play,” Gary said, “and I lost the ball. It was an aggressive shot. I was trying to make something happen.
“Things happen.”
Yes, they do. And when they do, interviews happen.
Gary’s locker stall was a media hurricane, where camera lights blared in his face and writers asked him again and again how it felt to fumble the game away.
“Was it a turning point?” Gary said, repeating one question. “Most definitely. I can’t feel good about it. It’s a horrible feeling.
“It would be like a bunch of reporters, competing, trying to do the best job, and one of you comes up short. Put yourself in that position. I don’t think I really have to answer that question.”
The joke about Gary is that he’s not only an NFL runner but a tale of two cities: Cleveland and Gary. Sunday, Gary was more a tale of two tailbacks--and if you’re a Ram, the punch line wasn’t worth the wait.
In his first 14 carries, Gary netted 99 yards.
In his last 10 carries, Gary netted four--including three rushes for losses and the fumble, which, for the record, went down as no gain.
Once more, Gary was asked to explain.
Once more, Gary couldn’t.
“I really can’t say. Things started getting crossed up,” he said. “Things started to close up. The tempo slowed down. It was an unfortunate thing.”
Was fatigue a factor?
“No,” Gary said. “Not at all. I doubt it.”
Everett noted that the Cowboys employed a few different defensive schemes in the second half, but nothing radical. “They just played well at the end,” he said, “and we didn’t.”
Out of answers, out of time, out of the playoffs. The Rams keep supplying the gruesome photographs. The captions they haven’t figured out.
“That’s why the football is shaped the way it is,” Everett said, trying to trade a grimace for a grin. “The ball bounces funny. I keep waiting for it to bounce our way, but for whatever reason, it hasn’t.”
By now, deep into November, it has become the most tiresome story line in the league. But try as they may, the Rams still haven’t found a way to drop it.