PRO FOOTBALL : COMMENTARY : Miller Does Another Banged-Up Job

NFL “Throwbacks Weekend,” as defined by the Rams:

Chris Miller: Gee, I’d sure like to have that throw back.

Chris Chandler: Let’s pretend it’s 1951 all over again. You be Van Brocklin, I’ll be Waterfield.

Chuck Knox: Any way we can take this one and throw it back?

In case any doubt remained, the clothes do not make the Ram. It was worth a try--jerseys the color of the golden fleece, lamb white pants, the echoes of ’51 bouncing off empty seats in the terrace level, Tank Younger and Crazy Legs Hirsch trotted out at halftime for a 10-minute nostalgia fest at midfield.

For the Rams, Sunday was a better day for history than current events. The Grandsons of ’51 continued to drag the family name through the mud, losing, 34-19, to a San Francisco team dressed in jerseys from the era of Y.A. Tittle, who probably could have replaced Steve Young and won this one, the way Jerry Rice and John Taylor frolicked unbounded throughout the Ram secondary.

The closest the Rams came to catching the proper spirit was rotating their quarterbacks, the way Joe Stydahar played it en route to the first and only L.A./Anaheim Ram NFL championship.

Well, not quite the same way, if nits are to be picked.

Forty-three years of ostensible progress have taken the Rams from Waterfield and Van Brocklin to Miller and Chandler. The theory of de-evolution, proved at last?

Waterfield and Van Brocklin took turns filling the sky above the Coliseum with picturesque spirals.

Sunday, Miller and Chandler took turns killing time between Sean Landeta punts.

Tale of the tape:

Miller--eight completions, 86 yards, long gain of 19.

Chandler--nine completions, 87 yards, long gain of 19.

It wouldn’t be right to call it a quarterback controversy, because what would be the point? One or the other, what’s the difference?

But this game did feature a controversy regarding a Ram quarterback. It involved Miller’s physical fitness--is he or isn’t he?--with Knox and Miller addressing the issue from the right and the left.

Miller absorbed a vicious hit by 49er defensive tackle Dana Stubblefield late in the second quarter and began firing punch-drunk passes to open the third.

“I asked him early in the third quarter if he was all right,” Knox said, knowing that with Miller this is always a loaded question.

“I asked him if there was anything wrong with his arm.

“I asked him if there was anything wrong with his ribs.

“I asked him if there was anything wrong with his shoulder.

“He said he was fine, so I left him in there.”

And Miller continued to one-hop passes to Flipper Anderson and Isaac Bruce.

“It was obvious,” Knox said, “something was not right.”

Finally, Miller fessed up and admitted to a tingling in his right hand. By the end of the game, four fingers on that hand had gone numb, Miller was complaining of a “fire in my shoulder” and team trainers had diagnosed a pinched nerve, recommending postgame X-rays.

By the time Knox changed quarterbacks, sending in Chandler on the Rams’ first possession of the fourth quarter, a 17-10 49er halftime lead had grown to 27-10.

Miller entered this game ranked 26th in the league in passing efficiency and didn’t help himself with a full quarter’s worth of numbball.

Miller called it “frustrating,” but should any of this surprise anyone who has followed Miller’s career from sling to cast to arthroscopic surgeon’s scar?

You spend $9 million on the prince of injured reserve, you get what you pay for. Three pain-killing shots in the ribs one week, X-rays on a pinched nerve the next.

“My knee feels great,” said Miller, who went on to brag that, “I’m not even wearing my knee brace.”

So he’s got that going for himself, which is nice.

“Things are going along fine,” Miller said, “and then I get this burning thing in my shoulder.

“I feel I’m throwing OK and the next thing I know, the football’s in the dirt.”

Who says Knox is not a coach for the ‘90s? Every time he watched one of those passes skid across the Anaheim Stadium infield, Knox could feel Miller’s pain. He got this funny tingling sensation. Felt numb all over.