For Rams, Best Change Was No Change : Robinson Sticks With Running Game, and It Finally Pays Dividends
There were the Rams, plodding along nicely in the second quarter against the Green Bay Packers, relying again on anything but their offense to score touchdowns.
It was Rams football all right, the kind that makes you want to grab your hair and scream.
An Eric Dickerson run here, a Dieter Brock pass there and the Rams are leading 14-10. Of course, the offense had as much to do with those touchdowns as the cheerleaders.
But as the offense trotted off the field at halftime you could still hear Coach John Robinson saying, over and over, “We won’t change.”
The Rams had lost three of four heading into Sunday’s game against the Packers.
Robinson’s response: “We won’t change.”
Star running back Dickerson rips the offense before the game for not opening up the attack.
Robinson’s response: “We won’t change.”
His idea of loosening up is opening the top button on his shirt.
Sometimes, Robinson seems more mule-headed than, well, a mule.
When he says the Rams are going to run the ball until the defense keels over, by darn, that’s what he’s going to do--whether it works or not.
The thing is, sometimes it works.
The Rams beat the Packers on Sunday, 34-17, at Anaheim Stadium because their offense beat up the Packers in the second half . . . finally.
It was a long time coming. It was a time to welcome Dickerson back to the ranks as one of the NFL’s great backs. He rushed for 150 yards on 31 carries.
It was time to welcome the offensive line back, too.
“Anytime you have a place to run, and can turn on the juice, then of course you run better,” Dickerson said.
Well, it’s almost as easy as that. The fact is the Ram running machine has been misfiring much of the season. There has been frustration and infighting. The team called a meeting last week to hash out its problems.
But all the problems of the world seemed to disappear on one 78-yard drive in the third quarter. The Rams were trailing by three points and sitting on their 22-yard line when they started their most impressive drive in weeks.
It was one of those Dickerson left, Dickerson right drives, where the huge offensive line knocked linebackers on their backs. Dickerson carried six times on the drive and capped it off by running 14 yards for the go-ahead touchdown.
“That really felt great,” Ram tight end David Hill said. “To drive all the way down the field and stuff it down their throats. For me, that was one of the highlights of the year. It got rid of all the frustrations of the past.”
It was power football at its best. It was Robinson football.
“They just ran it down our throats,” said Packer safety Tom Flynn, who must have heard Hill’s quote. “The key is to keep them from running the football to Dickerson because eventually, he’s going to break one.”
The Rams followed that drive with a 60-yarder early in the fourth quarter to take a 28-17 lead.
For Dickerson and the line, it was a chapter out of the past.
He and the line have been taking a lot of heat this season for their of production.
“I haven’t had the type of year that I’m going to look back on in the record books,” said Dickerson, who had that kind of year last season. “But I don’t think I’ve played that terribly. I’ve done well with what I’ve had to work with.”
What he has had to work with are defenses that are stacking as many as nine players on the line of scrimmage to stop the run.
“You just can’t block nine people with seven players,” Dickerson said. “Sometimes there have been so many players on the line that as soon as I got the ball, there’d be a guy in the backfield.”
The Rams took some of the pressure off the line and Dickerson by installing three wide receivers (Henry Ellard, Bobby Duckworth and Ron Brown) at the same time.
“That spread the defense out,” Dickerson said. “It helped a lot.”
But mostly it was old Robinson football at its best.
“We couldn’t stop the run and that’s what hurt us,” Packer linebacker Brian Noble said. “Many people are saying that he’s having an off season, but I guess today was just his day. The Rams came out strong and were able to run the ball at will.”
And with that, John Robinson just smiled.
