Rams Are Hoping That Home Can Be Sweet Again : 49ers: San Francisco has won five consecutive games at Anaheim. L.A. is counting on capacity crowd to help today.
They don’t have Joe Montana to kick them around anymore.
Montana remains a victim of elbow problems and the ascension of Steve Young as the San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback.
But the Rams (4-6), regularly beaten through the 1980s in Montana’s yearly Anaheim stopover and one more time last season by Steve Bono, are not so sure that Montana’s absence will make much difference today.
As they prepared for today’s sold-out game against the 49ers (8-2), the Rams realized that the 49ers still have most of their tools of destruction.
“To me, it wasn’t Joe Montana who was the killer,” safety Anthony Newman said. “I think we got hurt in the past when playing the 49ers, when they threw a five-yard pass to (John) Taylor and (Jerry) Rice and they’d run it for 80 yards for a touchdown.
“Those guys are the ones who hurt us. They’re going to catch some balls against us. What we’ve got to do is get 11 guys to the football, get them tackled, and then get up, play the next down.”
Taylor, recently back after a long absence because of a broken leg, and Rice have dominated the Rams year after year.
Taylor turned short slant passes into 92- and 95-yard touchdown pass plays during the 49ers’ 1989 Anaheim appearance and last year had another for 78 yards. Rice, meanwhile, has seven touchdown pass plays of 44 yards or more during his eight-year career against the Rams.
If they need more convincing, all the Rams have to do is review tapes of the first meeting this year in San Francisco. That was on Oct. 4, when Young ran for two touchdowns, including one 39-yard jaunt during which he broke or avoided about nine tackles. Mike Cofer’s winning field goal then overcame a second-half rally by the Rams in San Francisco’s 27-24 victory.
The Rams point to that 49er game as a turning point for themselves, triggering a revival of an offense that has continued to play impressively in the five weeks since.
“A play here and a play there, we win that ballgame,” said tight end Jim Price, who was involved in two miscues that turned the ball over to the 49ers during the fourth quarter.
“So we know we match up pretty good against the ‘Niners. It’s just going out and executing.”
After having lost four of their previous five games by a total of 14 points, last Sunday’s 27-23 upset of the Dallas Cowboys in Texas Stadium was the clearest sign yet that the Rams are a big step above last year’s team, which allowed Bono--Young’s backup while Young was injured--to throw for more than 300 yards. The 49ers won that game at Anaheim, 33-10.
“If we lose to the 49ers, they could say it was a big fluke we beat Dallas,” Newman said.
The victory over the Cowboys ended the Rams’ 11-game road losing streak. Today, against the other co-favorite to win this year’s Super Bowl, the Rams will have another chance to end a long losing streak. They have lost their last 13 division games, dating to Nov. 25, 1990, at San Francisco.
One other streak of note: The Rams have lost their last five games to the 49ers at Anaheim, since winning there by 16-13 on Sept. 14, 1986.
“If you watch them on film, and you’re a young guy, you can get scared by them,” Ram cornerback Darryl Henley said of the 49ers. “Because they just do things right. They take what you give them. It’s been that way for years.”
Even without Montana?
“I just think they have the same threats,” Henley said. “Joe’s not there, but they’ve still got everyone who’s been there in the past. Steve’s been there a long time. So yeah, you’ve got the same threats.”
Ram Notes
The Ram players, after enduring raucous crowds on each of their six trips this season, want to take advantage of the team’s first sellout since last December. “The thing we want to do different this week is get our fans more into it,” cornerback Darryl Henley said. “They just don’t understand that when you go play away, man, it’s no fun. You have to generate intensity from the crowd.”
