Strange Dance Partners, but They Both Can Move

The high points, low points and ticklish talking points of the weekend that was:

Eleven to six.

That’s not a playoff score, that’s a movie agent’s work schedule.

But I’m sure Dick Vermeil and the St. Louis Rams are less than worried about the aethestics of their NFC championship-winning slugfest with Tampa Bay than the final outcome, which lifted them to the Super Bowl in the best way possible:

Bruised and humbled by the Buccaneers’ voracious defense, but deserving.

Unable to set loose the pinball offense, but better for it, I think. Instead, we got to see them scrape and scheme and sweat.

And now they can go ahead and try to do the same against the Tennessee Titans, because they are going to have to.

This is a strange matchup, to be sure, but it sets up some great scenarios and tasty matchups and here are a few:

* Titan Coach Jeff Fisher and the Rams. He was hired as John Robinson’s defensive coordinator for the Anaheim-based team in 1991, with vague talk about him perhaps succeeding Robinson when the time came.

Instead, when the time came a year later, Georgia Frontiere and John Shaw decided to bring in Chuck Knox, who cleaned house, made things even more boring in Ramland, and eventually led to the team’s cash-grab move to St. Louis.

“Jeff will never be a head coach in the NFL,” Shaw said after Fisher hooked on with the San Francisco 49ers.

Oops.

* Tennessee’s opportunistic defense and the Rams’ quick-strike offense. Things slowed down for the Rams against Tampa, but against the blitzing Titans, there probably will be receivers running free.

* Can the Titans get another huge play from the kick-return teams? Remember, their two biggest plays of the postseason have been returns for touchdowns, from the home-run throwback against Buffalo to the free-kick back-breaker against Jacksonville.

* The pick: Tennessee, by a touchdown. When Fisher has things figured out (as he did, beating Jacksonville three times this season), he wins. The Titans already beat the Rams once, Jevon Kearse has a feel for how to hit Warner, and it’ll be 27-20.

THE BIG PICTURE

You don’t know how far this will go, because it already has gone much further than the most optimistic calibrations.

You don’t know when or if Brian Scalabrine, Brandon Granville, Jeff Trepagnier and David Bluthenthal--USC’s long-distance “Four-Iron”--will zoom to a top-level tournament seeding, keel over or do both.

You just know what USC pulled off Saturday night against No. 2 Arizona was something very special, probably the most elevating local college basketball performance, the most graceful meeting of crisis and dramatic response, since UCLA beat Arkansas in the 1995 national title game despite losing Tyus Edney.

The high points among the sky-high emotions:

* Mixing elbows and trading baskets with Eddie House, Michael Wright, Loren Woods and Jason Gardner, Bluthenthal emerged as an impact player with 44 points and 35 rebounds in the Trojan sweep of Arizona State and Arizona.

* The Trojans earned their way into the Associated Press rankings for the first time since Harold Miner left, and if they can somehow sweep their upcoming Oregon trip, they could be heading toward a No. 3 or 4 seeding in the tournament.

* In Coach Henry Bibby’s finest moment, he nursed his tight rotation through the Arizona game, alternately feeding off of Scalabrine and Bluthenthal’s energy in the late going, letting Granville play on with three fouls midway through the first half, and seemingly forcing Wildcat turnovers and missed shots by strength of will.

And I’m sure I am not the only one who watched and wondered: How good would Earl Watson, Jason Kapono, Jerome Moiso and Dan Gadzuric be if the coach across town could lead them the way Bibby leads his players?

WEEKEND TALKING POINTS

1. John Madden: All the valid commentary about Pat Summerall’s drowsy decline produced a strong side-effect--Madden, at his active, analytical best, seizing control and carrying Fox’s sharp broadcast of the NFC title game.

2. The best: And just as Madden set up the fourth-quarter moment, “Someone pretty soon’s going to make a play to get their team to the Super Bowl,” Ricky Proehl reached up and put the Rams ahead. Magic stuff.

3. Super Bowl XXXIV: Sadly, the advertisers only have VII days to make us all tired of the hoopla.

4. Laker struggles: Didn’t want to make a deal to screw up 16-game win streak chemistry. Now do they move into wheeler-dealer mode to get Phil Jackson a big body to spell Shaq?

5. Bill Murray at Bob Hope Chrysler Classic: I can’t wait to see Chris Rock goof around at the 2025 Bill Murray AOL Classic.

6. Jesper Parnevik wins Hope: But when Tiger Woods rejoins tour, everybody loses hope.

7. Bob Knight vs. Steve Alford: Good to see such grace out of the brave old coach--Knight gives his former star a tense greeting before Indiana-Iowa, then blasts him and media afterward.

8. Commissioner Bud Selig granted more power: So he can do the same magic with major league baseball that he performed with the Milwaukee Brewers.

9. Bill Parcells-Al Groh: Think the tabloids are ready? Last guy to take Parcells’ place in New York was Ray Handley. And that worked out well.

10. Richard Lewis vs. Ohio State: He’s so mad about a media-guide prank that listed him among distinguished Buckeye alumni as an “actor, comedian, drunk,” he might sue. I’d sue too if anybody called me an Ohio State alumnus.

LEADING QUESTIONS

If more and more of the fast-money nouveau billionaires gravitate to owning sports franchises, does that mean good things or bad for the sports world at large?

You see Mark Cuban buy the Dallas Mavericks, and suddenly, he’s playing one-on-one with Dirk Nowitzki and trying to sign Dennis Rodman and, of course, about to fire Don Nelson . . . and is anybody dizzy yet?

And Michael Jordan joins an AOL executive to take control of the Washington Wizards and visits practice and immediately a handful of Wizards are on the block and Gar Heard twists in the wind . . . and has the city calmed down yet? And Paul Allen pumping the Portland Trail Blazers full of cash and talent? . . .

If Art Modell, Al Davis and Donald Sterling are the old, and these guys the new . . . wouldn’t you take your chances with the future?