PRO FOOTBALL / BOB OATES : Emergence of Gary Might Be Key Lift the Rams Have Needed
Running back Cleveland Gary and passer Jim Everett are beginning to give the Ram offense the kind of double-edged threat it has lacked for most of the last 10 years.
When they had Eric Dickerson in the early 1980s, the Rams were weak at quarterback. Then Everett, on the way in, went by Dickerson on the way out. And ever since, the Rams have been inconsistent at running back.
Everett has always been all the quarterback they have ever needed to win a championship, provided he doesn’t have to do it all. Not even John Elway can do it all.
The missing link during most of the Everett era has been a running back with the skill and power to take the pressure off the quarterback regularly--in the same sense that Emmitt Smith of Dallas takes the heat off of Troy Aikman.
And in recent weeks, Gary, though he doesn’t quite have Smith’s speed, has been that man.
This month, Gary has gained 110 yards at San Francisco and 126 against the New York Giants in his two best performances in four Ram seasons. And going into the team’s day off Sunday, he stood third in the NFC this season and fifth in the NFL with 519 yards, well ahead of a 1,000-yard pace.
Is this a new Gary?
It is in one sense: He is running assertively now. He is running with the confidence of a man who is no longer worrying about fumbles.
Ram Coach Chuck Knox, noting that Gary has cast off his image as a fumbler, said: “A good back can’t be thinking about protecting the football. You have to run with reckless abandon.”
Gary can do that now because he has learned to hold the ball with two fingers over the point of the ball--instead of gripping it, as many runners do, with thumb and fingers under the point.
That way was first recommended by a quarterback, of all people--Joe Namath.
Dickerson uses the Namath way now, too. He and Gary either read the same book or heard the same advice.
It was illustrated on a recent CBS program produced by Bob Stenner.
Said Knox: “It helps that (Gary) has been available for ball-security drills this year and the nine-on-seven drills. He was nicked some in other years and couldn’t practice.
“The reason the practice week is so important for a running back is that the hole never opens the same way twice. You never get hit the same way twice.”
With their new Gary-Everett threat, how far can the Rams go?
“There are some other challenges,” Knox said. “But we’re headed in the right direction.”
Quiz: Whom would you rather have as your coach:
--Joe Bugel of Phoenix? Inside the Philadelphia three-yard line Sunday, Bugel called seven consecutive unsuccessful line bucks.
--Or Ted Marchibroda of Indianapolis? At the Miami one-yard line, Marchibroda called a quarterback rollout.
Indianapolis scored and won. Phoenix failed and lost.
No hired guns: In a series that the Toronto Blue Jays won with fewer total runs than the Atlanta Braves, it’s doubtful if they could have done it without David Cone’s pitching.
And that’s a reminder that Toronto got Cone in circumstances that are unknown in pro football.
NFL rules prohibit trades for hired guns in the final weeks of the regular season, when one more linebacker, or one more pass receiver, could push a contender into the Super Bowl.
For many years, pro football’s leaders have contended that it isn’t fair to allow a wealthy franchise to buy a championship at the last minute.
The NFL makes a lot of mistakes, but it’s right about that.
More freedom: If Toronto and Atlanta are about to lose some of their best players to free agency, as it seems, that is also the kind of thing that doesn’t happen to NFL champions.
But it should.
Limited free agency for the game’s most gifted veterans would be good for NFL fans--as it is for baseball fans, who, for example, get to see a World Series champion in Minneapolis one year and in Canada the next.
In pro football, by contrast, the same old champions win the Super Bowls most of the time.
That might soon change.
The NFL’s owners and players will be back in Judge David Doty’s Minneapolis court on Nov. 12--the 100th anniversary of pro football, which measures time from the 1892 day that Pudge Heffelfinger left Yale to pick up $500 in a Pittsburgh game.
Doty will listen to a new NFL presentation that would open free agency to a few more players than benefited last year, when each club freed 10 or 12 of its least talented.
Players’ lawyers are expected to argue that in a sport with an average career expectancy of less than four years, the only restriction necessary is one denying free agency to any player until four years after he turned pro.
That could put the Lombardi Trophy in a few more towns.
Pittsburgh fan: In the game that surprised NFL observers the most Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers overwhelmed the Kansas City Chiefs, 27-3.
That restored the new Pittsburgh coach, Bill Cowher, to the eminence from which he had fallen earlier in the month when the Steelers (5-2) lost at Green Bay and then at Cleveland after having opened the season 2-0.
Of the NFL’s nine new coaches, Cowher was at first the least regarded. What did Steeler President Dan Rooney see in him that nobody else saw?
“There were two things that interested us,” Rooney said. “(Cowher) showed that he has the enthusiasm that I think is the most important quality in a coach, assuming (he has knowledge) of the game. Secondly, he had a strong feeling that Pittsburgh is a good place to work.
“He’s from the Pittsburgh area. He was enthusiastic about working here. Pittsburgh competes against New York and California and Florida--and it helps if you love Pittsburgh.”
Eagles exempt: Denver Coach Dan Reeves was among the many who weren’t caught by surprise Sunday when the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Raiders, 28-13.
“The (NFC East) is a heck of a lot better than our division,” said Reeves, whose team, a Raider rival in the AFC West, has been dominated by two NFC East powers this season, the Philadelphia Eagles, 30-0, and Washington Redskins, 34-3.
It follows that any intra-division matchup in the NFC East is the game of the week, which is the right label for the Cowboy-Eagle rematch Sunday.
Earlier this month, when Dallas (6-1) was a 31-7 victim at Philadelphia (5-2), the Eagles harassed Cowboy quarterback Aikman into his worst game.
Looking back, Aikman says: “I think, when I got my insurance policy from Lloyd’s of London, there was an amendment that they’d cover me for 14 (of the season’s 16) games. The Philadelphia games are excluded.”
In that fiercely competitive NFC East, there are some strange numbers:
--Dallas can usually beat Washington. The Cowboys, 3-1 in their last four against Washington, ended the Redskins’ winning streak at 11 last season. During the Cowboys’ 1-15 season in 1989, Washington was the only team they beat.
--But the Redskins can usually beat Philadelphia. In their last 15, they are 11-4 against the Eagles.
--But the Eagles can usually beat Dallas. In their last 10, they are 9-1 against the Cowboys.
Ted Marchibroda, Indianapolis coach, on No. 1 choice Steve Emtman: “Disregarding (Emtman’s 90-yard touchdown Sunday), Steve is everything we thought he’d be.”
