Cleveland’s Greatest Brown Comforts Rams’ Frustrated Bettis
It had been a lousy day for Ram tailback Jerome Bettis.
He lost the NFL rushing lead Sunday, and the Rams were blown out, 42-14, by the Cleveland Browns at Anaheim Stadium. Bettis was thinking about both setbacks as he trudged to midfield for the post-game handshake.
He was greeted by a smiling Jim Brown.
Brown, a Hall of Fame fullback with the Browns in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, came away raving about Bettis, even though the punishing Brown defense ended Bettis’ streak of four consecutive 100-yard rushing games.
Bettis managed only 56 yards in 16 carries, leaving him with 1,283 yards this season and in second place in the league behind Dallas’ Emmitt Smith (1,318), who rushed for 153 yards Sunday against Washington.
“I love him,” Brown said of Bettis. “I really wanted to see him play in person, and I came away thinking he is a hell of a runner.
“He’s fast and can cut. His ability to cut like that is going to make him successful in this league for a long, long time.”
Brown had 58 100-yard-plus rushing games in his nine-year career. Bettis has six. Did Brown have any advice for the young Bettis?
“He just told me to keep my head above water,” Bettis said. “He just wanted to let me know that he was out there and saw the things I was doing.
“It was definitely an honor for him to say that he liked the way I ran. I’m just in awe of him coming over to me.”
Bettis’ pounding running style is similar to Brown’s, who left several defender’s on their backs while leading the league in rushing eight times in his career. He ran for 12,312 yards in 2,359 carries and scored a league-record 126 touchdowns, a mark being pursued by San Francisco wide receiver Jerry Rice.
“Of the footage I’ve seen of Jim Brown, I think he’s a tough S.O.B.,” Bettis said. “He was a tough one out there to tackle. Every time you see him, he was scoring a touchdown. That means he has a lot of touchdowns.”
Although he has watched films of Brown, Bettis said the Hall of Famer hasn’t directly influenced the way he plays.
“As far as influence,” Bettis said, “I think it was some of the later guys, Walter Payton and Earl Campbell, who influenced me the most.”
Brown wouldn’t draw any comparisons between Bettis and Campbell.
“You really can’t compare Jerome to anybody,” Brown said. “I don’t do that. I’ve never done that. That’s what you (sportswriters) are supposed to do.”
Bettis has plowed through defenses like a runaway train the past four weeks, running for 584 yards in 86 carries. But the Browns brought him to a halt Sunday.
The Browns played as many as seven players on the defensive front, keying on Bettis and daring the Rams to beat them with quarterback T.J. Rubley.
They held Bettis to his lowest rushing total since Nov. 14, when he gained 27 yards in 11 carries against Atlanta. Rubley completed 24 of 32 passes for 294 yards and a touchdown, but was intercepted twice.
“We knew Bettis was the leading rusher and that he went over 200 yards against New Orleans,” said Brown free safety Eric Turner, a former UCLA standout. “We wanted to get some respect and shut him down. We didn’t want him to stay the league’s leading rusher.
“We knew he would get the ball. He was averaging what, 10 yards a carry on sweeps? That’s Chuck Knox football, and we were ready for it.”
The Browns entered the game ranked 12th in the league against the run and have allowed only three 100-plus-yard rushing games to three backs this season.
“I thought we did OK on Bettis,” Cleveland Coach Bill Belichick said. “We really got hurt by the play-action passes by T.J. in the first half and the Rams moved the ball very effectively against us in the first half.”
Surprisingly, the Browns shut down the running game without much help from their defensive tackles, Jerry Ball and Michael Dean Perry. Ball came off the bench and didn’t have a tackle; Perry started and finished with only one unassisted tackle.
“We try to play pretty good run defense and we thought we could match up pretty well with Bettis,” said Cleveland linebacker Clay Matthews, who finished with three tackles. “They have three or four running plays and they run them pretty well. I think we played the sweep pretty well.”
Bettis could have gained 31 more yards in two carries, but the gains of 17 and 14 yards were called back by holding penalties on center Bern Brostek and wide receiver Flipper Anderson.
“They (penalties) are frustrating but you have to push on and not hang your head,” Bettis said. “The guys blocking for me are doing the best job they can. You have to take something like this in stride, go with the flow, and hopefully you can come back on the next play.”