After Five Years, Dupree Gets His Chance : Rams: Former Oklahoma standout, who suffered a serious knee injury in 1985, is expected to start at running back against the Saints Monday night.

Marcus Dupree, coming off a five-year injury-induced layoff, has been suiting up and sitting tight with the Rams for almost two months now. All dressed up and nowhere to run.

Dupree, 26, who suffered what everybody agreed was a career-ending knee injury in 1985 while playing in the United States Football League, has had to learn what it means to be an NFL running back--from the intricacies of blitz-pickup schemes to kick-off blocking to showing his teammates that he belongs.

“I think I’m a part of this team now,” Dupree said.

“You go in (to the Rams’ locker room), look at the board, they’ve got pictures of Marcus Dupree in there. They’re drawings--two weeks in a row now they’ve been picking on me.”

Is that a good sign? “Yeah.”

Dupree could always do the big, dramatic things, and if his knee is sound, he will keep on doing them five years later. He says the knee is sound.

But the past two months, he has been doing the little things in practice--doing them well enough to have earned the primary running role in Monday night’s season finale against the New Orleans Saints as the Rams celebrate Coach John Robinson’s continued tenure with the team.

Finally, as an indication of what 1991 might be like for the running back who was compared to some of the greatest runners of all time while playing for Oklahoma, the patient Robinson is giving Dupree his chance.

And his teammates can hardly wait.

“I think guys like him just for his work ethic, his modesty,” veteran center Doug Smith said. “(He is a) quiet, soft-spoken guy.

“He could’ve come in here very arrogant, but he hasn’t, so therefore, guys appreciate him. They watch him in the weight room, they watch on the field, he just keeps going, keeps going . . . so he’s going to be an asset to our team.

“I think he’s a good running back. He’s been in the end of a couple of games and knocked some people over and carried them with him, and I think you’re just going to see that on a full-time basis Monday night.”

Although Robinson won’t say that Dupree will start Monday, every indication is that Dupree will start and carry more than 20 times. Robinson apologized to Dupree after last Sunday’s loss in Atlanta for not getting him into the game and promised him he would start this week.

So, for the first time in five years--eons in football time--Dupree has his shot at real action. Live, New Year’s Eve, it finally will be Marcus Dupree’s prime time NFL debut.

“I’m not nervous,” Dupree said. “I’m anxious to see what Marcus Dupree can do. Just ready to get out there and go. I’m not nervous. It’s just something I want to do.

“I always wanted to run behind a big offensive line like (the Rams’). I’m looking forward on Monday night to do that.”

Can Dupree still excel after all these years?

“We’ll see Monday night,” Dupree said. “We’ll try to do a little shake, maybe a little bake every now and then.”

The site of the game is also special to Dupree, because it is the closest NFL city to his hometown of Philadelphia, Miss., and is the town where he played his first professional season, with the New Orleans Breakers. Dupree said about 50 friends have asked him for tickets, but “I’m not going to pay but for 10. Nothing more than that.”

It was at the Superdome where Dupree first began rekindling the desire to play football again, when, in 1989, his agent, Bud Holmes, brought him to a Saint game and Dupree started feeling itchy about the game after his five-year absence.

“That’s where I scored my first touchdown, at the Superdome,” Dupree said. “So it’ll be special, all the people from Mississippi will be there.

“I’ve always liked playing in the Superdome. It’s different, it’s a special place. The crowd really gets excited there.”

The Saints, who could be playing for a playoff berth Monday night, also seem a little excited about Dupree’s presence in the game.

“I remember he was a great back. He’s been through a lot with the knee injury and everything,” said all-pro outside linebacker Pat Swilling of the Saints.

“From what I’ve heard he’s really, really explosive and a big back. I think he has the speed to go inside and out, so he’s going to be a big challenge for us if he’s back to up par the way he played in the USFL and in his college days.”

If he’s back. Who knows if Dupree will be the force he was before the knee injury? Not the Saints.

“Yeah, I think it’s going to be a mystery for us,” Swilling said. “And it’s going to be a mystery for him to run up in there on our inside linebackers, too. They don’t like guys to run like that.”

Dupree had his own rejoinder.

“Well, I played against (all-pro inside linebacker) Vaughan Johnson in the USFL when he played in Jacksonville, so he knows about me.”

And does Dupree have any plans for Saint running back Craig Heyward, who broke Dupree’s nose last month when the two got into a fight after a kickoff?

“I’d rather not talk about that,” Dupree said with a smile. “It’s confidential. Top secret.”