RAM NOTEBOOK / TIM KAWAKAMI : Price Has Paid for Mistakes
Jim Price’s memories of the Rams’ last game against the San Francisco 49ers consist very little of his season-high five catches for a season-high 57 yards or of the Rams’ second-half surge to pull within punching distance of their bitterest rivals.
What the Rams tight end remembers, what everybody remembers, are his two fourth-quarter miscues--one a catchable pass he tipped up that was intercepted, the next a lost fumble--that ended the Rams’ hopes of an upset.
Who needs game films when your mind keeps flashing back to those plays?
“I haven’t forgotten,” Price said Wednesday, as the Rams prepared for their home-field rematch with the 49ers this Sunday. “But I look back, and it’s going to help me more than it’s going to hurt me.
“I’ve just got a little extra incentive to make a big play and get a little revenge.”
That is exactly what Coach Chuck Knox wants to hear. For Knox, the harder one of his players falls, the better it is to see how they raise themselves from adversity. If you don’t get up from defeat and move forward, Knox will move you elsewhere.
“Jim Price has played well, he’s come back and made some catches since that game,” Knox said Wednesday.
“That’s a test, you know, plays under pressure. The play that is over is over . Get a fine focus on the next play and move on. Profit by the mistakes that you made, whether you fumbled it, didn’t run the right route, you missed a block . . .
“I don’t think you can dwell on those things because if you do, what happens, you compound the mistake that you made.
“And then if you get down on the sideline, then all the other players end up having to focus on it, they’re trying to pick you up instead of worrying (about) what they’ve got to do when they get back in.”
So Price never got pulled from the lineup and the Rams never flinched from getting him the ball in crucial situations. In fact, his only reception in last week’s game was a 10-yard gain in Cowboy territory on the Rams’ go-ahead, fourth-quarter drive.
This time, Price held on, the Rams pulled ahead and got their big upset.
The first month or so of this season was tough for Price, from a clipping penalty on the year’s first offensive play in Buffalo to a shoulder injury in Week 4 to the 49er experience.
“Chuck likes to stay with guys and have them get in there and make the plays,” Ram offensive coordinator Ernie Zampese said. “And Jim’s performed, and he has certainly improved since the first game of the season.
“He didn’t have a very good start. But he has steadily gotten better and better and better and playing much more aggressively than he did, whether he’s blocking or going after the football. He’s making plays for us.”
Said Price: “I know what’s going through (Knox’s) mind and he knows what’s going through mine, and nothing more needs to be said. It’s understood.”
Price has become part of the Rams’ evolution toward an efficiency-first passing attack, in which the quick dunk over the middle for eight yards is valued just as much as the big strike down the sideline.
With quarterback Jim Everett avoiding pushing the ball into deep zones, running backs and tight ends have 92 of the team’s 171 receptions.
“It’s good for us,” said Price, who has 17 catches. “What’s good about this offense is everybody gets a shot, everybody’s going to see the ball.
“It keeps everyone in the game because at any time they could call your number. So you’re not sitting back there wondering when you’re going to get the ball.”
Montana watch: The first target date for Joe Montana to make it back from his elbow woes to the active roster was the Rams’ first game with the 49ers, Oct. 4. It didn’t happen.
The second target date was this week’s game, again against the Rams. It won’t happen.
The 49ers continue to keep Montana on the slow track back--especially with Steve Young posting an 8-1 record in games he has started and finished. The 49ers lost to the Cardinals in which he missed most of the game with the flu--and Montana, despite his preference to get some action, hasn’t even been able to get onto the practice squad.
What it has come down to for Montana is tossing sessions with whomever is around to catch for him. “As we talk, I can look out my window and he’s out throwing the ball right now,” 49er Coach George Seifert said on a conference call with reporters Wednesday.
“He threw last week, four or five days, and threw well, and he’s in a similar-type program this week--just going out and working on his own or with our physical-conditioning coach and throwing the ball. But he looks good. I think it’s coming well.”
Could Montana be switched to the practice squad, which would allow him to practice with the team for the first time in more than a year, anytime soon?
“Yes,” Seifert said. “I don’t know exactly which week it’ll be, but I would think so, yes.”
The 49ers, in anticipation of perhaps adding a kicker to their roster because of the shoulder injury to Mike Cofer, waived defensive end Jacob Green--a Knox favorite in their Seattle days. Seifert said the 49ers probably would wait until Friday or Saturday before making a decision on what to do at kicker. . . . Erica Rocker, wife of Ram defensive tackle David Rocker, gave birth to twins Tuesday night: a boy, Gavin, and a girl, Gabriel.