Refined? For the Rams, That’s Reason to Argue

You can call an NFL player any number of things--thug, marginal citizen, blight to society, murder suspect--and he will just wink, tug on his facemask and grunt, “All a part of the game.”

But break out the word “finesse” when describing him or his team and watch the nostrils flare, the eyes redden and hear the molars grind.

“You keep hearing all of that ‘finesse’ stuff and it gets to you,” St. Louis guard Adam Timmerman said Sunday after the Rams ran it up and kept coming against the thesaurus-challenged New York Jets, 34-14, at the Meadowlands.

“We play the game as physical as anyone,” Timmerman declared. “No one can ever say we’re not aggressive.”

Did the Jets ever say they were?

Not technically. Last week, a few of them casually referred to the Rams as a finesse team, which, if you own a dictionary or watch the Rams play on an intermittent basis, is not far from the mark.

(Note: Very few NFL players have dictionaries, so for their benefit, “finesse” is defined as “1. Refinement or delicacy of workmanship, structure or texture. 2. Skillful handling of a situation: adroit maneuvering.” Sounds like Kurt Warner to Isaac Bruce on a timing pattern to me.)

Well, when the Rams saw the newspaper clippings, they went ballistic. “There were a lot of things said about this football team coming into this game,” Coach Mike Martz said.

“All that garbage, you know how it is.”

What, us adroit?

You calling us refined?

Better step outside when you say that.

Utterly ludicrous, of course, but, you know, whatever gets you up for a game against Vinny Testaverde with Marshall Faulk on the shelf.

So the Rams ran up a 31-7 third-quarter lead and successfully converted an onside kick. Then, with four minutes left, Martz challenged an apparent fumble by Robert Holcombe that the Jets recovered. After the replay indicated that Holcombe indeed had coughed up the ball, Martz granted Warner permission to saunter over to the stands behind the Ram bench and sign autographs for the remainder of the game.

Finesse that, Jets.

New York center Kevin Mawae described the Rams’ antics as “classless.”

In the backward vocabulary of pro football, however, that can be construed as a compliment. As in: “The Ravens are classless, but last season they won the Super Bowl. Therefore, classless must be a good thing.”

Except classless will only take you so far, as the Ravens are discovering. How about these numbers for the Cosmic Agate Page:

Old Cleveland Browns 14, New Cleveland Browns 24.

Or these AFC Central standings, conclusive proof in the existence of a Higher Being, finally back in the shop after a January sabbatical:

Pittsburgh Steelers, 4-1.

New Cleveland Browns, 4-2.

Old Cleveland Browns, 3-3.

“It feels so good to get this win for the fans of Cleveland, who have seen their team leave town and then go win the Super Bowl,” Brown quarterback Tim Couch said after helping knock Baltimore back to .500.

“This was for them.”

Included among those three Baltimore defeats: Setbacks against Cincinnati and Cleveland, a.k.a. The Dregs of the AFC. Included among the last two Baltimore defeats, back-to-back to Green Bay and Cleveland: 55 points against the Better Than The ’85 Bears Defense, which, at this rate, is due for a rewrite.

Say: The Not Up To Snuff With The ’01 Bears Defense.

Chicago shut out Cincinnati on Sunday, 24-0, lowering their points-against average to 8.6, best in the league. You don’t need much offense to win when you’re giving up fewer than three field goals a game, which explains why the Jim Miller-led Bears lead the NFC Central at 4-1, setting or threatening some serious records in the process:

Four Bear wins in a row--longest team winning streak in six years.

Possible Bear playoff appearance--would be the first in seven years.

Shutout by the Bear defense--first in eight years.

Four-and-one start by the Bears--best in 10 years.

Startling stuff, all of it, and then there was this highlight reel provided by New England wide receiver David Patten:

One player running for a touchdown, passing for a touchdown and catching a touchdown pass in the same game--first time that’s happened in the NFL in 22 years, when Walter Payton did it for the Bears.

And where, pray tell, did Patten accomplish this feat?

In the Patriots’ annual Father-Son flag-football game?

No--incredibly, inside the Indianapolis RCA Dome, where those three touchdowns and another by Patten powered the Patriots to a 38-17 victory and a season sweep of the Colts, who today try to get out of bed despite the nagging realization that they have been outscored, 82-30, by a team quarterbacked by Tom Brady.

Those touchdowns by Patten were things of beauty, but elsewhere around the league, there was ugliness.

In Washington, the Redskins were embarrassed into beating someone--the Carolina Panthers, 17-14--by their own fed-up fans, who spotted Sonny Jurgensen in the broadcast booth and began derisively chanting, “WE WANT SONNY!” and inspired Tony Banks into a 346-yard passing day.

In Cincinnati, officials had to stop the game and call for extra security near one end of the stadium when angry fans began pelting the field with a variety of dangerous objects.

And in Detroit, where the Lions dropped to 0-5 after a 27-24 loss to Tennessee, Lion Tracy Scroggins and Titan Brad Hopkins were ejected for fighting after the fourth play of the game, followed by Lion Luther Elliss being tossed for pushing an official.

Unsightly, yes, but that’s life in the NFL. There’s nothing finesse about it.