Delpino Drops Ball and Kicks Himself : Rams: After going all season without a turnover, his two fumbles help give game to Chiefs, 27-20.
The Rams don’t crow after football games anymore. Those buzzard and vulture noises come from the scavengers of the media circling the locker of the anti-hero of the week, this week’s being Bobby Delpino.
“Be a politician, Bobby,” guard Tom Newberry instructed from a few stalls down.
Sorry. Bobby couldn’t oblige.
The best he could do was be himself, better late than never, because Delpino was anything but himself on the football field Sunday.
A whole season without fumbling and Delpino drops the football at the Kansas City 39-yard line, leading directly to a Kansas City field goal.
A whole season without fumbling and Delpino drops the football at his own 23-yard line, leading instantly to a Kansas City touchdown on linebacker Derrick Thomas’ sideline recovery-and-rumble.
“I cost us the game,” Delpino said, standing up, needing no prompting. “I cost us 10 points. Ten points against a good team. Ten points in a close game. Our defense played its . . . off, our offense moved the ball all over the field, and I give them 10 points.
“I lost the game for us.”
The Rams lost, 27-20, because, against stultifying odds, they found a new way to lose. Get this: Bobby Delpino, the begin-all and end-all of the Rams’ 1991 highlight package, the league leader in touchdowns, the Ram leader in reliability, the emergency solution and salvation to Cleveland Gary’s fateful fickle fingers, fumbles twice in one half--once at the worst moment imaginable.
Score tied.
Two-and-a-half minutes to play.
First down sweep at the Ram 23.
Kansas City safety Deron Cherry pokes a hand in . . . and in a blur, Thomas is dancing in the end zone with the football and the Rams are wallflowers once more.
“A stunner,” Ram Coach John Robinson called Delpino’s fumble. “Like a lightning bolt out of the sky.”
Added quarterback Jim Everett: “Bobby is a dependable back. Bad things keep cropping up. I hope to God they end soon.”
Before Sunday, Delpino ran the football 142 times, caught the football 31 times and returned three kickoffs. He had not fumbled.
He played another half, rushed 12 more times, caught three more passes, still no fumbles.
“My job is to hold onto the football,” Delpino says. He was giving the Rams another honest day’s work.
The streak ended with 5:19 left in the third quarter, on first down, with the Rams driving for the potential tying field goal or maybe more. No one hit Delpino until the football was gone. He squeezed it under his right arm as he approached the line and then it squirted free, up into the air and finally into the arms of safety Kevin Porter.
Kansas City ball on the Chief 39. Nick Lowery field goal and 20-14 Kansas City lead coming right up.
The Rams could withstand one temporary glitch in the system. In the fourth quarter, they drove 88 yards to tie, only to have kicker Tony Zendejas, the only other unblemished Ram through the first nine games of 1991, miss an extra point for the first time this season. Three things the Rams could depend on--Delpino’s hands, Zendejas’ right foot--and all of them were failing the Rams now.
But it wasn’t the end. The Rams were still tied, 20-20, when Delpino was handed the ball again and told to sweep right end.
A good percentage play, right?
Couldn’t happen again, right?
“I think I saw an invisible hand come up and tick the ball loose,” said Everett, trying to inject a little levity. “I’m going to ask our stadium crew if they can take care of that.”
Actually, the hand belonged to Cherry. Delpino figured it would be coming.
“I knew they’d try to strip the ball,” he said. “That’s what they teach over there. They try to tackle the football on every play.”
Delpino said he tried to straight-arm Cherry.
“I was trying to get a few extra yards and get out of bounds,” he said. “I was concentrating on holding on tight.
“But the ball came loose. It was amazing. It seemed like the ball just went floating on its own.”
Delpino wished the football would have rolled out of bounds, but it didn’t.
Delpino wished the fumbles came in Atlanta, “when we got stomped and it wouldn’t have mattered,” but they didn’t.
“It comes down to being professional, and I wasn’t,” Delpino said. “You’re not professional when you leave two balls on the ground against a team like the Chiefs, in a game you should’ve won. . . .
“The first one cost us great field position and gave them three points. The second one, they ran back for a TD. That’s just carelessness. You can say, ‘Well, these things happen,’ but to me, that’s bull. We have a job to do.”
Delpino took no solace in the fact the Rams hung in for 60 minutes with one of the league’s best teams.
“They hung in with us,” he said.
He took no solace in the words of encouragement from Robinson.
“When we do get to playing playoff-type football,” Robinson said, “I will give the football to Bobby Delpino in that same situation. He’s one of the best football players in this league and he’s one of the best at running the football in the clutch.”
Said Delpino: “That’s thoughtful, but today, it’s very obvious. I cost us the ballgame.
“Every week, it’s someone else. The whole year, it’s not me . . . and now it’s me. Two fumbles. Two major ones. It’s a scary thought. Can’t we go through a game without throwing it away? Can’t we? Will it ever stop?
“It has to.”
Delpino didn’t sound convinced, but considering the moment at hand, and his hands at the moment, it was all the faith he was going to muster.
