ANALYSIS : Ram Offense Singing the Same Sad Refrain

Maybe the Rams can coax Peter, Paul and Mary to record the team’s theme song for the ‘90s:

Where has all the offense gone?

And the long passing?

As they stood on the threshold of a new decade, the Rams possessed an offense that was the epitome of finesse football. Remember the winter of ‘89? Jim Everett’s spirals and Henry Ellard’s hands, or maybe Flipper Anderson’s feet. Streaks and flashes and 41 points on the board.

The threshold turned out to be a precipice, however, and the promise of the ‘90s turned to despair in a hurry. Lately, Southern California real estate developers have been having more fun than the Rams’ offense.

Talk about a recession. Here’s a look at the decline in Ram offensive productivity (after the first four games of the last four seasons):

1989--The Rams scored 116 points in a 4-0 start. Everett threw seven touchdown passes, including long strikes of 65, 46 and 29 yards. Ellard had four touchdowns. After only four games, the Rams had 1,031 passing yards.

1990--The Rams were 1-3, but nobody was blaming the offense. They put almost as many points on the board (111) as the previous season. Anderson scored on pass plays of 55 and 40 yards. Ellard had a 50-yarder. Everett already had 10 touchdown passes. And the passing game had racked up 1,184 yards.

1991--The Rams were still losing, but now they were losing ugly. They scored only 50 points, but somehow managed to win one of the first four games. Everett didn’t have a touchdown pass. Anderson had only four catches and the Rams had only four pass plays of more than 25 yards. After averaging more than 250 passing yards a game in the first quarter of the previous two seasons, the Rams were down to a 159-yard average.

1992--Three touchdown passes, 633 passing yards and lucky to be 2-2. Anderson leads the receiving corps with nine catches--a 31-yard touchdown included--but Everett has completed only four passes of more than 20 yards.

So what went wrong? Did the Rams’ second game of the new decade--that embarrassing 30-3 loss to San Francisco in the NFC championship game Jan. 14, 1990, when Everett was so rattled that he sacked himself on one play--so crush their confidence that they have never recovered?

The cast of players hasn’t changed that much, at least not at the positions most crucial to a timing-oriented passing game. Sure, favorite short-range targets Pete Holohan and Buford McGee are gone, the offensive line has gone through some transition and the running game isn’t what it once was.

Still, Everett, Ellard and Anderson remain in place . . . although a fan who had been in the Peace Corps a couple of years might not be able to recognize them without a program.

The big play, it seems, is no longer a part of the Rams’ playbook. They say you can’t have an effective passing game without a semblance of a running game, but consider this:

After four games in 1989, the Rams had converted 23 of 49 third-down situations. This season, they have picked up a first down only 12 times in 45 third-down attempts.

They have been successful three times when facing third and eight or more. And these are downs on which everyone knows you are going to pass, anyway.

Coach Chuck Knox will tell you that it’s just a matter of a poorly run route here, an errant pass there, a dropped ball here and a missed blocking assignment there. Out of sync seems to be the catch-all phrase. You know, the Rams just haven’t been fortunate enough to have it all click at the same time.

But they weren’t lucky to be tearing through the secondary and burning out scoreboard lights every Sunday in 1989. And they’re not slugging through lackluster performance after lackluster performance this year because they’re unlucky.

A couple of observations:

--Timing pass patterns take time and Everett hasn’t had a lot. Even when they’re keeping opposing pass-rushers from getting free shots at the quarterback, the Ram offensive line is giving up too much ground.

This incredible collapsing pocket has forced Everett to throw on the move and, well, it’s not exactly poetry in motion. (Witness the dying quail he tossed in the direction of a wide-open Ellard after rolling out to his right in the second quarter Sunday).

--OK, Everett hasn’t had great protection, but a lot of quarterbacks around the league do more with less. Quarterback guru Ted Tollner was hired this year to solve the mystery of the disappearing quarterback, but let’s face it, no amount of psyche conditioning or footwork drills will turn Everett into a scrambling man.

He is not, however, cowardly, as some have suggested. He ran four times Sunday, even diving headlong into a defender in an attempt to get a first down. But he’s no Red Grange. More like Redd Foxx. (Witness his one-yard stagger up the middle near the end of the first half Sunday.)

--Ellard was once the quintessential possession receiver. He was the guy who would go over the middle, take a bone-rattling shot, get up and run the same pattern again. And, of course, he’d catch and hold onto the ball both times.

These days, however, Ellard seems a bit more reticent to extend himself to make a reception. And, thanks to Everett’s recent lack of accuracy, he has had plenty of chances. For Ram receivers, catching the ball in stride is now an aberration, no longer the norm.

No one knows exactly what went wrong or how to make it right. Not Knox, or Everett, or Ellard, or Anderson. Only this much is painfully clear: The glory days quickly deteriorated into the gory days.

And it doesn’t figure to get any prettier anytime soon. Next up, the 49ers at the ‘Stick and the Saints in the ‘Dome.

Ram Passing Game Has Gone South

(Through first four games of each season)

Year Att. Comp. Yds.* FDP** TD Int. 1989 116 77 1,062 38 7 3 1990 146 84 1,241 55 10 3 1991 103 55 663 29 0 4 1992 114 58 670 32 3 7

*--Doesn’t reflect losses through sacks or fumbles.

**----First downs passing.