49ers Dissatisfied, Rams Just Beaten : Pro football: San Francisco considers 27-10 victory ugly. Opposition agrees, for different reasons.
They were frustrated by frequent mistakes, puzzled by an offense that had been at full power all season but struggled in low gear most of the day and were ready for some serious soul-searching when the ordeal was over.
Beat L.A.? Well, yes, the San Francisco 49ers, as is their custom, did that Sunday, marching away from the Rams in the fourth quarter for a 27-10 victory before 65,858 at Anaheim Stadium.
But the 49ers like to leave soaring. They have done it plenty of times and have too many Super Bowl trophies back home to remain unconcerned when winning comes relatively ugly.
“I guess,” 49er quarterback Steve Young said, “we might be the only team in the league that would be kicking themselves after a 27-10 win.”
Or after second-year tailback Ricky Watters skidded and bounced his way through the Ram for 163 yards rushing in 26 carries. Or after Jerry Rice did it again to the Rams--busting out for a 42-yard touchdown pass to break the game open in the fourth quarter. Or after winning their sixth consecutive game at Anaheim Stadium and sentencing the Rams to their 14th consecutive NFC West defeat.
The Rams (4-7) seemed to realize San Francisco (9-2) was not Super Bowl-sharp Sunday, and they felt the ache of another lost opportunity.
The 49ers, who committed eight penalties, lost a fumble that led to a Ram touchdown and seemed out of kilter on their quarterback-to-receiver communication. They were ahead by only three points, 13-10, in the fourth quarter, despite holding the Ram offense relatively silent.
The Rams lost, 27-24, to the 49ers on Oct. 4 in Candlestick Park, but never were able to charge up their offense in Sunday’s quieter rematch.
Tailback Cleveland Gary, who has been the heart of the Ram offense in their recent, six-game offensive surge, was limited because of a sore right ankle and carried the ball only 11 times for 35 yards--and only three times for 11 yards after the first half.
“I think it’s obvious today, if you watched the game, that it wasn’t like it was the last six or seven games,” Gary said. “That’s all a part of it.”
The Ram offense converted only two of 11 third-down tries, one in each half, and the offense ground to a halt.
With the Rams unable to move the ball, keep the misfiring San Francisco offense off the field or score, it was only a matter of time before the 49ers shook out of their own troubles and got a game-breaking play as the fourth quarter unfolded.
This time, it was a deep sideline toss from Young to Rice, who grabbed the ball as it ricocheted off Ram safety Anthony Newman’s helmet, then carried it into the end zone. Rice has caught eight touchdown passes of 40 yards or more against the Rams in his eight-year career.
That gave San Francisco a 20-10 lead with 6:36 to play.
The 49ers pushed across one more touchdown--and ate up most of the remaining time--on a 10-play, 61-yard drive, culminating with Watters’ three-yard touchdown run, his second of the day.
“I’m just happy to see him do so well,” Ram cornerback Todd Lyght said of Watters, his college teammate at Notre Dame. “I just hope we could have as much success as the San Francisco 49ers.
“But there’s a couple things missing. Until we figure out what it is, we’re going to have tough times.”
On Oct. 4, in Candlestick, Ram quarterback Jim Everett completed 20 of his 24 passes, including 12 in a row, against a 49er defense that gave him a lot of passes up the middle to his tight ends and toward the flats to his backs.
Sunday, in the face of a defense determined to take away the intermediate passes he had been feasting upon, Everett, who had completed 72% of his passes the last six weeks, completed only 13 of 29 for 158 yards.
“I think (the 49ers) were doing a lot of things similar. It’s just the fact that we weren’t converting the ball,” Everett said. “I don’t think we were playing up to the level that we (must to) expect to have a chance to beat these guys.
“We were still in that ballgame until the very end. But we needed to make some things happen earlier in that game to take a little bit more control. We never really put the pressure on them--making the plays that we had to.”
San Francisco scored first, putting together a 10-play, 63-yard first-quarter drive centered around and finishing with Watters, who scored from three yards out and had 46 rushing and receiving yards on the possession.
But the 49ers, who went into Sunday with the No. 1 offense in the league, averaging 406.3 yards, bogged down, despite Watters’ continued pounding out big chunks of territory.
They could add only a 34-yard Mike Cofer field goal in the final seconds of the half for a 10-0 lead.
Young completed only 14 of his 26 passes, for 167 yards, and said the 49er offense committed too many crucial errors to be satisfied.
“Today we tried to change gears about 10 times out there to get something going,” Young said. “But you can’t change holding calls or offsides or quarterbacks throwing the ball downfield when guys are covered. Those are the kinds of things we’re going to have to eliminate next week.”
Eventually, the 49ers saw that the Rams were dropping their linebackers quickly to stop Rice and John Taylor from getting receiving angles, and settled on giving Watters the ball.
The Rams pounced on a fumble on the second play of the second half and converted it into their first points when Everett found Ellard open at the goal line from 31 yards out.
An exchange of field goals made it 13-10 in the early minutes of the fourth quarter, and that’s when Young-to-Rice shut the door for good.
“The 49ers--they’re the kind of offense, you’re not going to shut them down,” Lyght said. “You’ve just got to try and contain them. To beat the 49ers, you have to have a lot of ball control on offense, and we were unable to do that.”
