A Personal Mouse Vs. Mouse Matchup Within 49er-Ram Game

Next year, Jerry Gray and Jerry Rice won’t meet face to face. Their personal mouse-and-mouse game will continue, but Gray is going back to being a safety again, same as he was as a two-time collegiate All-American at Texas. He won’t be playing cornerback anymore. He won’t be right in Rice’s face mask.

For tonight, though, we get one more look at Jerry vs. Jerry, a three-time Pro Bowl player vs. the Super Bowl’s most valuable player.

Bring binoculars.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Gray said after a Ram rehearsal for tonight’s prime-time television hit-com co-starring the San Francisco 49ers. “I expect Jerry Rice is looking forward to it. I expect most everybody’s looking forward to it.”

Gray leads the Rams in interceptions and ranks third in tackles. He is one of those players you know you ought to know, the same way you know the Ram and Niner quarterbacks and receivers, the same way devoted NFLers know the super-hero of San Francisco’s secondary, Ronnie Lott.

But, for some reason, you just don’t. He’s the Gray Ghost. He goes quietly about his work, gliding about the premises, springing up behind people at the last possible second and yelling: “Boo!” There is something about Jerry Don Gray that makes him blend into a crowd and remain unnoticed, even while he is materializing into one of football’s truly fine defensive backs.

Gray goes out there, day after day. Hasn’t missed a game since getting drafted in 1985. Hasn’t missed a start over the past 57 games. Gray gives a day’s work for a day’s pay in a profession that, as we have seen with Brian Bosworth and Herschel Walker and even Bo Jackson, abuses even body-builders’ bodies.

Gray goes only 6 feet, 185 pounds. He hits bigger.

That’s much of what he misses about playing safety. Roaming freely, reading the quarterback’s eyes, putting a lick on somebody who’s just felt the football on his fingertips, Gray gets nostalgic just thinking about it.

“I love to run free,” Gray said. “Run free and hit, help out. Have the freedom to go pretty much where I please.

“But the biggest asset, the thing I like to do best, is to see the whole field in front of me. It’s the old quarterback in me coming out.”

Until he went to college, Gray was an all-district high school quarterback, and one of the most talented individuals to come out of Lubbock since Buddy Holly. Local folks raved on and on. University recruiters invited him to come play quarterback . . . except the ones from the University of Texas. They wanted him to be a defensive back.

Gray figured a 6-foot quarterback might have trouble getting to the NFL. He didn’t see many black quarterbacks around that league, either, at least not back then. So, he became a Longhorn, made 16 interceptions and went to the Rams in the first round.

Then they moved him from safety to corner.

He had to learn new footwork. Had to travel backward. Had to chuck the Jerry Rices of the world at the line, then shadow them wherever they went, one on one. Wasn’t easy.

“Rice was able to do everything against me. He’d turn to do an ‘out’ route, and I’d fall for the other fake. He had the ‘go’ route whenever he wanted. I guess I’d grade my performance a C-minus, maybe even a D,” Gray said.

One night against the Rams, Rice had 10 catches for 241 yards. Ate the Rams’ lunch.

Ever since, Gray and Rice have gone at one another on more equal terms, a couple of fighters who now have seen most of the moves. In the Oct. 1 game at San Francisco, Rice caught only two passes. Two 18-yarders. He hasn’t caught fewer in any game all season.

Gray, who turns 27 Saturday, is going to be around for a while, but holds John Robinson’s IOU that he will get a shot at being a safety next season. He believes he can do the Rams more good there. He also believes: “I can be an All-Pro safety. Coming out of college, if I had put this amount of time into safety, I’d be All-Pro (at safety) right now.”

For now, Gray has to be satisfied with going after his fourth consecutive trip to the Pro Bowl as a corner. You can bet Rice will make another Pro Bowl, too. Life is just a bowl of Jerries.

Oh, and there’s that other post-season bowl that still interests the Rams.

“Are we good enough to be a Super Bowl team? We think we are,” Gray said. “And beating San Francisco is going to take us one step closer to our goal.

“They’ll be 11-3 and we’ll be 10-4, and we’ll be in good shape.”

You will?

“At least that’s the attitude we’re taking into the game,” Gray said. “That we’re going to win. That we’re going to take the fight to San Francisco.”

This is not a neutral corner.