COMMENTARY : Rams Didn’t Have Situation Covered

It isn’t every day the Rams give up 488 yards through the air. Say that much for them. In fact, over the course of 57 seasons and 779 games, it had happened only once--on Oct. 7, 1990, when Cincinnati’s Boomer Esiason went for 490, and needed a healthy chunk of overtime to get that.

Steve Young and Steve Bono had only 60 minutes Sunday.

That was all right with them.

Boomer never had the visceral thrill of throwing into a Ram defense minus its top three cornerbacks and down to playing guys Chuck Knox was pulling off the street.

Wymon Henderson, who was out of football seven weeks ago, started at one cornerback.

Courtney Griffin, career practice-squadder, was promoted to nickel back.

Even Sammy Seale and Dexter Davis, plucked from the NFL unemployment line Tuesday, did some backpedaling and chasing against San Francisco, indoctrinating themselves as fully vested Ram defensive backs.

Cornerbacks Todd Lyght and Robert Bailey were out with bad knees. Darryl Henley has even worse problems. And Pat Terrell, the team’s third safety, was shunted to the inactive list, sidelined because of a pinched nerve in his neck.

But someone had to play, so Henderson and Griffin were thrown in there, along with second-year player Steve Israel and veterans Anthony Newman and Michael Stewart, and tried to catch the numbers of the red-and-gold vehicles zooming past them.

Young and Bono spread the wealth among seven 49ers. Young went long and short, far and wide, using virtually every receiver available, since so many of them were open. Jerry Rice caught eight balls for 166 yards. John Taylor grabbed six for 150. Young threw 32 passes, completed 26, amassed 462 yards and four touchdowns before turning it over, at 35-10, to Bono, who mopped up with 26 yards of his own.

Henderson, of course, had been there before. Boy, had he ever. Henderson started for the Denver Broncos against the 49ers in Super Bowl XXIV, which was won by the 49ers, 55-10. Joe Montana threw for five touchdowns that day, three to Rice, and Henderson took his place in many newspaper photos as a background extra amid San Francisco end-zone celebrations.

Nearly four years later, Why-Me Henderson was minding his own business, vacationing at his parents’ home in Miami, when the phone call came from Rams Park.

“I’ve been beaten before like this,” Henderson accurately noted, “and it probably won’t be the last.”

Accurate again. Henderson and the Rams still have five games left on the schedule.

Rice beat Henderson for one 39-yard touchdown in the first quarter and set up another with a spectacular one-handed grab while tiptoeing down the right sideline in the third quarter.

Sixty-two thousand spectators gasped at the sight of Rice plucking the football from the air as if it were a grape on a vine.

Henderson simply shrugged.

“Haven’t you seen him make those kind of plays before?” Henderson asked. “Nothing to be surprised about. He makes those plays consistently.”

Newman, watching from the free safety position, wanted to know, “What more could Wymon have done? Wymon was all over him and he still catches the ball.

“What can you say? Rice is a great player. Great players make great plays.”

Henderson was asked if this reminded him of that dark day in New Orleans, Montana to Rice to 55-10.

“You’re talking something that happened five years ago,” Henderson said. “There were a lot of things I learned from that game, and the other things, well, I just chalked up to a bad day.”

And what was it that Henderson learned?

Henderson frowned. He was not enjoying this line of questioning.

“Let’s just say I learned,” he replied. “I learned that I needed to change up my technique.”

The best technique of all would be to avoid Rice on any given Sunday.

“It’s a challenge each time you go out on the field against him,” Henderson said. “It’s something I look forward to.”

Those scores again: 55-10, 35-10.

Look forward to?

“Yeah,” Henderson insisted, “because you know the guy’s going to get a lot of balls. So you know it’s coming your way. It keeps you focused the entire game. You always have to be on your toes.”

Stewart, however, could think of better ways to pass three hours. When the 49ers continued to pass on first down in the fourth quarter with a 31-point lead, Stewart ground his teeth.

“It’s like someone beating up your son,” Stewart said, “and then he starts kicking him while you’re standing there. But there will be another day.”

When it comes, the Rams need to arrive with their primary secondary. Down three cornerbacks, what can they do?

Four hundred and eighty-eight yards happen.