Rams Find New Life as a Division Leader : Pro football: Bruce grabs two touchdown passes as St. Louis moves to 5-1 with a 21-19 victory over Atlanta amid frenzy.
Grieve no more, Southern California. The Rams have gone to a better place.
This became as official as it will get Thursday, when a national television audience witnessed a quiet Mississippi River town embrace its new football team and shake it until a victory fell out.
A victory that put up the curtains and laid out the porch mat.
A victory the team’s coach says could not have occurred last season in Anaheim.
During an ear-splitting 21-19 decision over the Atlanta Falcons before 60,047 at Busch Stadium, the St. Louis Rams announced that they are home.
“Los Angeles is gone, man,” said Todd Lyght, a Ram cornerback. “They’re making movies out there. We’re putting in work, here. We’re not glitz, we’re no glamour, we’re just a bunch of solid people now, Midwestern-type people, getting the job done.”
He spoke above the din of a scratchy rap tape, amid much locker room prancing and hugging, but you get the point.
The Rams are playing with a new sense of values, the sort that allows a team to make three dumb mistakes in a nine-minute period--two allowed touchdowns by special teams, one blown touchdown because of an offensive penalty--and still survive.
They are the sort of values that allow a team to churn out its longest drive of the game on its last drive of the game.
That push of nearly seven minutes that ended with Ram quarterback Chris Miller taking a knee and the Rams taking first place in the NFC West with a 5-1 record.
Miller made his final toss into the stands, where even fans in distant sections cheered as if the ball was intended for them.
A crowd that began gathering seven hours before the game--that is not a misprint--was so consistently loud, and obnoxious, and sometimes even obscene, that the Rams genuinely seemed moved to greater things.
“You can’t even hear the quarterback, but it doesn’t matter,” said Johnny Bailey, Ram running back and one of many small-name contributors Thursday. “The noise carries you.”
Sources say the Rams will announce today that their new dome down the street--the reason they moved from Anaheim this spring--will not be opened until the Nov. 12 game against the Carolina Panthers, one home game behind schedule.
But because that game is against the San Francisco 49ers next week, the Rams are thrilled.
“We want to get the 49ers in Busch, with this kind of noise. We want this place to be good to us one more time,” Miller said.
With three home victories, Busch Stadium has already helped them win more games than all of last year. Then, they won four and attracted 34,599 to their home game against the Falcons, which they lost, 8-5.
This was, in fact, the largest home crowd that the Rams have attracted for the Falcons in 16 years.
“Last year, this team doesn’t overcome the types of things that happened to us tonight,” said Rich Brooks, the Rams’ daring new coach. “This year, they do.”
Did somebody say last year?
“I don’t want to talk about last year, that’s ridiculous,” said receiver Todd Kinchen. “We get sick of talking about it, and we get sick of coach talking about it.”
Maybe Brooks talks about it to remind Kinchen that last year, he wasn’t catching a punt and then bouncing a lateral across the field to Isaac Bruce.
This happened late in the first half, resulting in a 52-yard return for Bruce, who three plays later caught a nine-yard touchdown pass from Miller to give the Rams a 21-7 lead.
“I tell you what, it is really fun to play like this,” Kinchen said.
Or maybe Brooks talks about last year for the sake of Bruce, who held his coming out party at the expense of an injury-depleted secondary featuring rookie cornerback Ron Davis.
“He was wide-eyed and terrified,” said Bruce of Davis, replacing injured starter D.J. Johnson. “There were times I thought, no way can they cover me.”
Can anybody? Bruce, who has blossomed in his second season and with a new offense, had career highs in catches (10) and yards (191) while scoring two touchdowns and running a slant route that reminded people of, dare we say, Jerry Rice?
“ Bruce , there it is,” chanted the crowd, making a play on a popular stadium chant.
But, whoops, there it almost went late in the first half and early in the third quarter, when the Falcons scored on a blocked field-goal return and a punt return.
But the Ram defense held and the fans did the rest.
