Rams Take Over Quickly

The Detroit Lions were determined Monday night to keep St. Louis Ram star Kurt Warner off the field.

If only they could have done the same with their own two quarterbacks.

While Warner was typically efficient in the 35-0 Ram victory, throwing three touchdown passes, the Lions groped for answers.

They tried Ty Detmer in the first half, and Charlie Batch in the second. Both threw interceptions. Both were booed with gusto. Neither did anything to keep the Silverdome crowd of 77,765 from streaming toward the exits throughout the fourth quarter.

“The quarterback thing doesn’t really matter right now,” said Marty Mornhinweg, who is 0-3 as coach of the Lions. “There are other things offensively we have problems with. Turnovers in the red zone, penalties in the red zone. Those are the brutal things.

“The time will come when we’ll be a good football team. I just can’t give you that time.”

Detroit fans could be waiting a while. By late in the second quarter, Monday’s game was on ice. The Rams took a 14-0 lead on touchdown passes of 15 yards to Az-Zahi Hakim, and 36 yards to Torry Holt, then got the crowning blow from their defense.

With the Lions moving into scoring position for the first time, cornerback Dre’ Bly intercepted a Detmer pass over the middle and raced untouched 93 yards for the touchdown.

Detmer, who kept his starting job despite throwing seven interceptions at Cleveland two weeks earlier, already was on shaky ground with the home crowd. Boos filled the dome, and got louder three minutes later when Detmer took a knee and ran the final 25 seconds off the clock. The Lions trudged to the locker room trailing, 21-0.

As loud as those boos were, the cheers were even louder when Batch trotted into the huddle at the beginning of the third quarter. On his first play from scrimmage, he handed off to James Stewart for a 30-yard gain, Detroit’s longest. The stadium shook two plays later when Batch completed a 25-yard pass to Herman Moore.

Was a miraculous comeback too much to ask? Of course.

Batch turned to the sideline to get the play, leaning forward and cupping his hands to his helmet in a vain attempt to hear the call. Obviously, he didn’t get it, because his pass for Germane Crowell was, oh, 20 yards off target. It wound up in the hands of cornerback Dexter McCleon, who snuffed the threat with an effortless, over-the-shoulder catch in the end zone.

Nothing was quite as effortless, though, as Warner’s mastery of the St. Louis offense. He completed 29 of 37 passes for 291 yards and three touchdowns.

Although the Rams ran just three times in the first half, they finished with 94 yards in 21 carries. The closest the Lions came to scoring was late in the third quarter, when they drove to the St. Louis eight-yard line.

A holding call moved them back, however, and two plays later Batch was sacked and fumbled. Defensive end Grant Wistrom scooped up the loose ball and rumbled 75 yards for an apparent touchdown. It was nullified because of an illegal-substitution penalty.

The Lions turned over the ball three times inside the St. Louis 30.

“Everybody is extremely frustrated,” Detroit defensive tackle Luther Ellis. “This one is hard because I thought that we had a great week of practice, guys were really enthusiastic, and then to go out on the field and not know where all that energy went is kind of disappointing to see.”

The Rams scored five minutes after the fumble recovery when Warner worked them downfield with a series of short completions, finishing the drive with a one-yard touchdown pass to tight end Ernie Conwell.

Fittingly, Marshall Faulk--who led the Rams in rushing and receiving--provided the final touchdown with a seven-yard run. He finished with 71 yards in 14 carries, and nine catches for 80 yards.

“The beauty of the game is that the same thing doesn’t always work,” Faulk said. “Some days you just want to run the ball. Today, throwing it was working. Stats and percentages don’t matter. Points matter.”