Dickerson and the Rams Couldn’t Bring Home the Bacon or Pigskin
The “Hogettes,” those snout-of-heart Washington Redskin football fans who attend the D.C. team’s games dressed like a litter of Miss Piggies, probably will be packed into the back of a truck and make the trip to this Saturday’s National Football Conference playoff game at Soldier Field in Chicago--where, without much doubt, they will be mistaken for William Perry’s computer dates.
The ‘Skins pigs are entitled to oink their fat faces off this week because their favorite team went out and rooted the Rams right out of the playoffs, 19-7, in Sunday’s wild-card game at RFK Stadium.
The Rams gave them exactly what they craved most: Slop.
If they could fumble when a fumble would hurt most, they fumbled. If they could be penalized when a penalty would hurt most, they were penalized. At a time when “Play Smart” had to be the coaching staff’s first commandment, some of the Rams went out and played with their horned helmets right up their rumps.
“I think we played a very good football game, other than the turnovers,” Eric Dickerson said.
When you fork over the football as often as Dickerson and the Rams did Sunday, you did not play a very good football game. Football is not like a beauty pageant, where the runner-up will serve if for any reason Miss America cannot fulfill her duties. In the NFL, when you finish second, you lose, honey.
It did not have to be that way for the Rams. Had they taken care of the most fundamental business--protecting the ball when carrying it, avoiding knuckle-headed and unnecessary penalties--they undoubtedly would not have gone three periods without scoring. (Which, by the way, extended their p1818327407periods, counting last season’s loss to the Bears.)
The human error of Dickerson’s three fumbles can be forgiven, if we choose to be divine. After all, the man in the yellow goggles did run the football very well, on this day and on many days prior. However, a superstar of Dickerson’s caliber must make sure that he tucks the ball away more securely in a game that means so much to the hearts, souls and bank accounts of the other 44 guys on his team.
The Ram mental mistakes were unforgivable, though. Sure, LeRoy Irvin got jobbed on that pass-interference call in the first quarter, but he knows better than to tack an unsportsmanlike-conduct rap onto the yardage--an infraction that led to the Redskins’ first touchdown.
Irvin knows that, just as Jackie Slater knows better than to commit unnecessary roughness after a play has been whistled dead. And just as other Rams know not to be responsible for making illegal blocks on kickoffs, or fumbling kickoffs out of bounds inside their five, or for lining up with 10 men or getting flagged for delay of game.
No-think football teams do not go to Super Bowls. It takes more than fast backs and big blocks.
The Redskins, even with some of their biggest, meanest “Hogs” slowed or sidelined by injuries, maintained an advantage over the Rams throughout the afternoon simply by never making mistakes. Oh, sure, someone in support of the losers will gripe about the not-so-instant replay that took the football from the Rams, but who fumbled that football, anyway? The referee?
About the only play that went off perfectly for the visitors was the 12-yard touchdown throw from Jim Everett to Kevin House, in which the receiver nimbly kept his feet in bounds. In Washington, the loyal fans and citizens considered this particular play House Un-American activity.
Alas, everything else went the way of the Hogs. The offensive line overpowered the Ram pass rush, even after Russ Grimm and Joe Jacoby excused themselves from play, and the secondary performed so wonderfully that eyewitnesses wondered, after a while, whether Ram super-receiver Henry Ellard had even caught the plane to the game.
Saddest state of affairs of all for the Rams was that a dozen of Washington’s 19 points were delivered by somebody named Jess Atkinson, a kicker whose fame, up to Sunday, had been restricted to close friends and relatives. Talk about insult to injury. The Redskins hadn’t kicked worth a darn all season, but against the Rams, they get not one field goal but four.
The Rams have another shot at the Redskins on next season’s schedule--at Washington. Everett will be a little more mature. Dickerson will be a little more determined. Possibly everything will be different.
Until then, the Rams can do no more than relax as the Redskins take their act on the road. Chicago, remember, is the home of the stockyards. The Hogettes, within the week, could be turned into bacon.