PRO FOOTBALL : Dickerson, by George, Could End Up Better Than Ever

During Eric Dickerson’s eight years as a running back for the Rams and Indianapolis Colts, he has never played in the same backfield with an eminent, seasoned quarterback--Joe Montana, say, or Warren Moon, Bernie Kosar, Randall Cunningham--or Jim Everett.

Thus, the extraordinary thing about Dickerson’s record-breaking career is that from the first, the defensive players he has faced have been able to key on him consistently and almost exclusively.

They could think Dickerson because they didn’t have to think pass.

And still he has gained his annual thousand yards or more.

Accordingly, Sunday’s Colt-Bengal game in Cincinnati had the look of a landmark game for Dickerson. For a change, he was joined by an apparently first-class quarterback, Jeff George. And together, they demolished the Bengals--George with three touchdown passes and Dickerson with 143 yards.

“We couldn’t match (Dickerson’s) speed when he broke to the outside,” Bengal Coach Sam Wyche said.

It is much too early to declare George a great quarterback. But against the Bengals, he resembled one, and that was enough for Dickerson--who has started slowly this year because, in effect, he is still in training camp after a long holdout-lockout.

Dickerson and George.

What a poignant commentary for Ram fans on what might have been with Dickerson and Everett.

To NFL people, one of the year’s popular words is focus, which they take to mean concentration.

As they have often said, they were astounded that for 10 weeks this fall, the undefeated San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants could stay focused on the game at hand as each new opponent surfaced.

Remarkably, the two best teams of the year each won 10 straight despite steadily increasing attention on the 49er-Giant game next Monday night in San Francisco.

The dam finally broke this week. The emotional nature of football, even for veterans, stands revealed in the fact that the 49ers and Giants both lost for the first time at the same time--the week before their big game.

Prematurely wondering about one another, both lost their focus on the opponents at hand, the slightly flawed but determined and emotionally well-prepared Rams and Philadelphia Eagles.

“Nonsense!” Eagle Coach Buddy Ryan said. “The Giants weren’t looking past us. “

Comment: They shouldn’t have been, true, but you can make book on it, they were. That’s football.

John Robinson football has meant one thing in particular since his earliest days in coaching.

It has meant the power to batter opponents in the fourth quarter, to diminish their interest in playing on.

At USC, Robinson ran Marcus Allen at his opponents until they dropped in the fourth quarter. And at Anaheim, as one of the Rams’ most successful coaches, he used to do it with Dickerson.

But in a memorable playoff game one Christmas Eve, with Dickerson speeding in a broken field, a New York Giant safety got one hand on Dickerson’s ankle and tripped him up, knocking the Rams out of the Super Bowl.

That convinced Robinson that he had to throw the ball to win playoff games, and, shortly, he brought in a passing expert, Ernie Zampese, along with a passer, Everett.

And for a spell, John Robinson football disappeared.

Against clever opponents, you can’t move the clock in the fourth quarter with passes.

Or so it seemed until late Sunday afternoon in San Francisco, when the Rams, scoring a major upset, held the ball for more than 10 of the last 15 minutes with a smart new version of Robinson football: ball-control passes by Everett mixed with a few slashing runs by Cleveland Gary and Buford McGee.

Their 90-yard drive, mostly on passes, took the heart out of the 49ers. You don’t often see a 49er team quit--but as Robinson has proved often enough, tough fourth-quarter football erodes most opponents.

The Raiders will have to win at Denver Sunday to stay abreast of the Kansas City Chiefs, who will be breezing, no doubt, in New England.

Thereafter, in the final month of the season, their schedules are comparable, meaning that the Chiefs will probably win the division championship now, forcing the Raiders to compete as a wild-card team.

How serious is that? Well, they won Super Bowl XV as a wild-card team, eliminating four playoff rivals in succession--Houston, Cleveland, San Diego and Philadelphia.

The job would be easier this winter if, Sunday, on another big day for halfback Marcus Allen, the Raiders had stopped the Chiefs’ Steve DeBerg.

Linemen with Howie Long’s experience should know that the Kansas City quarterback leads the league in but one category, the ability to pull opponents offside with his voice.

The Raiders would have had another possession if they hadn’t tried to guess along with DeBerg in the fourth quarter on the rhythm and accent of his counting.

Giving Kansas City all those first-and-fives was the mistake of the year for the Raiders, who could have overcome the Chiefs, conceivably, with one more series.

Pro football’s players and club owners, who have been at war on picket lines and in courtrooms for four years, moved closer to peace with this month’s NFL decision to put the Management Council under Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

It was done by a vote of 24 owners to four--meaning that a sizable NFL majority wants the negotiating with the players to be handled under Tagliabue’s supervision instead of by the formerly autonomous council, whose chairman is Hugh Culverhouse, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The real problem, though, is still on the table. The NFL’s bottom-line argument is about free agency, which the players want in some form, but which a minority of owners opposes in any form.

Eight of the 28 clubs can block any action that would lead to a collective bargaining agreement granting free agency to players with, say, 10 years’ seniority. And a group of eight or 10 clubs have blocked that so far.

An owner who speaks for that minority, as quoted the other day by Will McDonough of the Boston Globe, said: “The players (are) asking for the same kind of deal like they’ve got in the NBA. They want a percentage of the gross, free agency after a few years, and only a couple of rounds in the draft.

“But there’s a big difference here. The owners in our league aren’t going for any NBA (deal), and if Paul (Tagliabue) thinks they are, he’s crazy. It’s not going to happen.”

McDonough, who in print and on TV consistently sides with management against the players’ union, didn’t identify his source. But Culverhouse was the only owner he mentioned that day, and those are the known sentiments of Culverhouse and Billy Bidwill of the Phoenix Cardinals, among seven or eight other owners.

The NFL’s No. 1 priority, Tagliabue still says, is labor peace. It isn’t the players, however, he has to convince. Nor is it the bulk of the owners. It’s the minority, those who keep saying, “It’s not going to happen.”

Quote Department:

Wayne Fontes, Detroit coach, on the Lions’ 40-27 victory over Denver Thanksgiving Day: “It was a win for the run-and-shoot, but we still have a long way to go on defense. We’re in the middle of a big rebuilding program here.”

Jack Pardee, Houston coach, on the struggle for the title in the AFC Central: “The team that puts together a winning streak now will win this division.”

Buddy Ryan, Philadelphia coach, on the New England Patriots: “They’ve got a lot better players than their record indicates, but (with) new coaches, a new system, you’re going to be worse than the year before.”