Rams Fight Fire With Firepower and Win Big
NFL defenses have become so complex this season that you can’t possibly out-guess them.
So the St. Louis Rams say.
So they don’t even try.
They don’t even think about it.
“Our quarterback never calls an audible,” Mike Martz, the club’s offensive coordinator, said the other day as the 13-2 Rams got ready to play Philadelphia today.
“We just come out in the formations we like and run the plays we like.”
The Rams beat Chicago that way last Sunday when, ignoring the Bears’ novel blitzing defenses, they attacked furiously and won again, 34-12.
*
Case for aggression: The Rams’ strategic approach to football definitely isn’t that of the offensive experts who since the time of Hall of Famer John Unitas have insisted, “Take what the defense gives you.”
That’s too confining for Martz.
“The defense doesn’t limit what we do,” he said. “We’re a multiple-formation team that’s as multiple as we can be.”
Thus as halfback Marshall Faulk accumulated 258 yards against Chicago on 10 runs and 12 catches, quarterback Kurt Warner brought the Rams out in every formation known in the modern NFL, regardless of down and distance.
Respecting today’s NFL defensive players, Martz, said, “They’re so aggressive that they’ve got you if you aren’t aggressive too.”
*
Secret weapon: On most pro clubs this season, most innovations have been shown on defense.
And most offensive coaches have settled into conservative, predictable ways.
The offensive exceptions are the Rams, the Indianapolis Colts, and at times the Washington Redskins and Seattle Seahawks.
And of those, the Rams have been playing wide-open football.
In part that’s because they have the speed for it: a fast back, Faulk, and four swift receivers, Isaac Bruce, Az-Zahir Hakim, Torry Holt and Ricky Proehl.
What it takes to play Martz football is speed.
“We do everything in a hurry,” he said. “We get the backs out fast, and our quarterback gets the ball out fast, because our game is based on personnel matchups. If our third receiver is better than their third defensive back, we want to get the ball to him. Fast.”
*
Three fast drafts: Swiftness is also the mark of the Rams’ defense, which is sometimes overpowered but never outrun--as was demonstrated again last week when defensive end Grant Wistrom raced 40 yards to score with an intercepted pass.
Speed is the first priority of Coach Dick Vermeil.
“Power is out, speed is in,” he said. “Since our first day in St. Louis [three years ago], we’ve been looking for explosive players, drafting for speed.”
Vermeil’s whole career is a study in speed:
* In his second season at UCLA, where he coached in 1974 and ‘75, he had the Bruins in the Rose Bowl, where they upset No. 1 Ohio State.
* In his third season at Philadelphia, where he coached from 1976 through ‘82, he had the Eagles in the playoffs--and shortly in the Super Bowl.
* And in his third season in St. Louis, he has the Rams in the playoffs.
“At UCLA,” he recalled, “I was a young man in a hurry.”
Now, he’s an older man in a hurry.
*
Beautiful barbecues: It’s a little early to talk about dynasties in St. Louis but Vermeil might have more than a one-year wonder team.
Despite the perils of free agency, he seems sure that he can hold onto most of his hungry, happy warriors indefinitely.
“What I try to do is create an atmosphere in which nobody wants to leave, regardless of [better offers],” he said.
That means making sure that every player knows he’s loved and wanted.
Thus, the Vermeil family was socializing with the players as usual after work recently on what he said was a rookie night at the Vermeil house.
“My wife had 17 for dinner,” he reported, adding proudly, “I did the barbecuing.”
Afterward, he complimented “those with a fast reach.”
It’s the same with quarterbacks. The thing Vermeil likes best about new passer Warner is “his quick release.”
*
High-class parity: Indianapolis’ close shave last week against Cleveland--of all teams--along with the tumble of the 13-2 Jacksonville Jaguars, left the Rams as the NFL’s most reliable winner.
That’s regular-season winner.
The playoffs could well be something else for the Rams, who were dealt one of the league’s bottom-club schedules.
It wasn’t their easy schedule that led the Rams to the top this season--mostly it was their speed, skill and coaching--but the truth is, the NFL is now a parity league.
And the Rams are part of the parity.
*
More Moss, please: Minnesota wide receiver Randy Moss’ touchdown pass to fellow wide receiver Cris Carter last week will give Viking playoff opponents something to think about next month.
On a 27-yard play, Moss threw it like a quarterback as Minnesota rolled past the New York Giants, 34-17.
That kind of play could be a regular happening in any team’s base offense--as could halfback passes--if the coaches weren’t so conservative.
There is nothing requiring quarterbacks to throw all the passes.
When Moss threw that one--and when in other years Marcus Allen and Paul Hornung delivered halfback passes--every defensive player was shocked.
Anything different shocks, disrupts, and often defeats, football players.
It’s the nature of the game.
*
Broncos are coming: Denver Coach Mike Shanahan promises that in his 2000 backfield, he will frequently pair Orlandis Gary, the Bronco rookie who gained 185 yards against Detroit on Christmas Day, with Terrell Davis, who was the league’s leading running back until he was injured last October.
It was after Shanahan led the Broncos to their second consecutive Super Bowl victory last winter that injuries began dismantling the champions, who, in just the last three months, have lost six starters to injured reserve.
All that ruined Shanahan’s shot at a third straight Super Bowl.
In 2000, he can, however, make it three out of four with the return of his wounded veterans and the pairing of Gary and Davis.
Both backs, who are about the same size, block and catch passes at least as effectively as San Francisco’s runners blocked and caught the ball when Bill Walsh coached the 49ers to their first three Super Bowl victories with the same kind of two-back backfield Shanahan envisions.
None of their rivals has two-back backfield talent.
And in 2000, quarterback Brian Griese will be more experienced.
*
Deion all-timer: Most media people seem to be thinking of the long ago when choosing their all-century teams, in spite of which Deion Sanders of Dallas continues as the NFL’s best active athlete and, probably, one of the 11 best of all time.
Coach Bill Parcells of the New York Jets didn’t overlook him the other day when the Jets edged Dallas, 22-21.
The Cowboys assigned Sanders man-to-man coverage of Jet wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson. Not once did Parcells allow his passers to throw it Johnson’s way.
*
Selected Short Subjects:
* The New Orleans rookie who beat Dallas’ Troy Aikman last Sunday, Jake Delhomme, was the seventh rookie quarterback to start for an NFL team in this transition season.
* Tampa Bay rookie quarterback Shaun King, who won for the third time Sunday in four starts, might have learned more football in the only game he lost, the 45-0 beating at Oakland the previous week. The Raider game was the only one he has played on the road, where he’ll be playing in the playoffs if the Buccaneers make contact with the Rams.
* The Baltimore Ravens’ Brian Billick may not make coach of the year this season but he deserves serious consideration. Nobody expected the Ravens to be 8-7 at this point after a four-game winning streak that carried them to third place in the AFC East behind only the two powers, Jacksonville and Tennessee.
* There might be only one Eastern power today, Jacksonville, if Jaguar quarterback Mark Brunell hadn’t gone down with a knee injury last Sunday. Brunell is a contemporary leader in NFL comebacks. That’s a reminder that the two injuries that most obviously influenced Sunday’s games--Brunell’s and the knee injury that sidelined Seattle running back Ricky Watters--could well influence the playoffs as well.