| Isaac Bruce stepped up to the plate and delivered. The
Rams’ star wide receiver played in only 17-of-32 games in 1997 and ’98 because
of hamstring problems.
Last season, however, instead of just stretching those troublesome hamstrings, he spent
his time stretching defenses.
Healthy again, Bruce was a star producer again, catching 77 passes for 1,165 yards and
12 touchdowns.
"Ike’s had two years where a lot of people doubted him, second-guessed him
and questioned whether maybe that hamstring was as bad as it was," Vermeil said.
"Was it chronic? Was his career over? I think he’s just erased all that type of
skeptical thinking. He is a blur."
Nothing could slow him down. Not even what could have been a devastating car accident.
Bruce was only slightly injured when his Mercedes convertible blew its left tire,
skidded off the south side of Interstate 70 near Kingdom City, Mo., overturned and came to
a rest on its wheels.
"Fortunately he’s OK," Vermeil said. "He’s bumped and bruised
and ruined a nice car."
Even though he had not been wearing a seat belt, Bruce was given a clean bill of health
the next day. He caught more than 100 yards’ worth of passes several days later
against the Saints.
After two seasons full of hamstring woes, Bruce had developed an immunity to injury.
The only pain was felt by opposing secondaries.
Rookie Torry Holt stepped up to the plate and delivered.
Around the midpoint of the season, the Rams’ first-round draft choice was running
out of gas with many miles of open road ahead.
"After about Game 11, he was looking for a bowl game or something," Martz
said.
At that point, his numbers were pretty ordinary. Anyone who thought the fatigued Holt
would take the easy way out and simply coast to the end of the season clearly didn’t
know whom they were dealing with. Holt does not know what it means to take the easy way
out.
Just think back to training camp when tradition states that rookies must sing for the
veterans. Holt approached this as he does everything else. With gusto. He actually
rehearsed three songs before training camp. Rehearsed! That’s like practicing for the
next time you sneeze. Most people just wait for the time to come and let ’er rip. Not
Holt.
"I wanted to be ready," Holt said. "I like to prepare myself for
different challenges. And that was a challenge to get up there and sing for the vets and
try to do a good job."
There was plenty of applause from the veterans after Holt was called upon to sing the
first time.
"I felt they were pleased," he said.
Thus, it would have been quite a shock had Holt hit the brakes when he hit the rookie
wall. Instead, he found his second wind, thumped his foot on the accelerator and stepped
up his play.
He caught passes totaling more than 100 yards in two of the Rams’ last four
regular-season games.
He was just warming up. He was the Rams’ leading receiver in each of their three
postseason games.
In the Super Bowl, he caught seven passes for 109 yards and a touchdown despite having
to leave the game twice due to injury. The first time was for bruised ribs; the second
time was because of a shoulder injury. He kept coming back.
"Oh, man, I’m hurting right now," he said afterward. "But I had to
suck it up."
He couldn’t even raise his right arm above waist level.
"I had to get a lot of treatment," Holt said. "Luckily, the training
staff got me ready to play, and I was able to come up with some things."
Martz said, "He’s a tough, tough player, and we’re real excited about
the way he finished this season."
Ricky Proehl stepped up to the plate and delivered.
Just when it looked as though the Rams’ season might be in jeopardy, Proehl
stepped up as the most unlikely of heroes.
Trailing the Buccaneers 6-5, the Rams scored the game-winning touchdown with 4:44
remaining when Warner hit Proehl with a 30-yard TD pass.
Proehl? The team’s No. 4 wide receiver?
"I’m the guy they’re always trying to get rid of," Proehl said.
"I’m the guy they are always trying to replace. You know, ‘There’s 100
Ricky Proehls out there.’ I beg to differ."
Warner said, "It didn’t matter who did it. As long as he was wearing a Rams
jersey, it didn’t matter.
"But when it comes down to making a play, we’ve made plays all year long.
Ricky came through today."
The Rams’ offensive line stepped up to the plate and delivered.
OT Orlando Pace and OG Adam Timmerman both earned their first Pro Bowl berths this past
season. The paths they took could not have been more different.
Timmerman is the football player for whom nothing ever came easy. Whatever he achieved,
he had to sweat for.
He received only a partial scholarship to play football in college, so he bailed hay on
neighboring farms in Iowa during the summers at $6 an hour to help pay for school. The
school he went to was South Dakota State, which didn’t exactly have a prime spot on
the radar of most NFL teams. He wasn’t drafted until the seventh round in 1995 by the
Packers.
"I was just happy to get drafted," he said.
He earned the nickname ‘the Brawler’ as a rookie for some of the fights he
got into in practice. For Christmas that year, some of his teammates gave him a pair of
boxing gloves. His blue-collar, physical style paid off, though. He earned a starting job
with the Packers, and then during the offseason of 1999, he struck it rich as a free
agent, signing with the Rams for $19 million over five years.
The money did not make him soft, as his berth in the Pro Bowl attests. No surprise
there. After all, Timmerman used to clean out the hog pens on the family farm as a kid,
and, even now when he returns to the farm, he still helps out with the chores in the
fields.
Fittingly, what Timmerman brought to the Rams was a toughness the offensive line had
been lacking.
"I think it’s been something I’ve prided myself on," Timmerman
said. "Not missing practice, not taking time off for little nicks and stuff like
that. I think you’ve got to fight through things like that."
If Timmerman had to overcome the label of underdog to hit it big, Pace had to overcome
the label of underachiever to do the same.
Pace was the first player taken in the 1997 draft. He was supposed to be the
can’t-miss kid. It was still too soon to say he’d missed heading into the 1999
season, but he certainly hadn’t hit it big as yet, either. The book on Pace heading
into the season was that his ability was superior and there were no whispers about his
work ethic. Nonetheless, he had been slower to develop than expected and seemed to have
lost his aggressiveness.
Part of the reason that Pace was the first player taken in 1997 was the fact that he
was a mountain of a man. Part of the reason he finally had his breakout season last year
was the fact that he removed a few of the boulders from that mountain. He lost 23 pounds
during the 1999 offseason, which gave him added quickness and agility. This, combined with
an attention to technique work, finally turned him into a dominating performer.
"Orlando really stepped up and matured in the offseason," Timmerman said.
Rams DE Grant Wistrom said, "He’s been probably one of the most dominant
offensive tackles in the game (in 1999)."
Jackie Slater, a former offensive tackle who went to seven Pro Bowls for the Los
Angeles Rams in the 1980s and early ’90s, said, "He is on his way to becoming
the finest left tackle in pro football."
Although Timmerman transformed himself from underdog to Pro Bowler and Pace went from
underachiever to Pro Bowler, the biggest change in reputation may have been earned by a
Rams offensive lineman who did not go to the Pro Bowl — OT Fred Miller.
When the Rams lost a road game to the Titans 24-21 in Week Eight, Miller was singled
out as perhaps the biggest goat of the game because of the avalanche of penalties called
on him as he tried unsuccessfully to deal with Tennessee’s rookie speed-rushing
sensation Jevon Kearse. Miller was nailed six times for false starts and twice for
holding.
"I think Jevon had the guy terrified on his speed alone," Titans WR Yancey
Thigpen said. "He got in his head early, and the guy just couldn’t get him out
of his head."
Miller said, "It probably just snowballed on me. One bad thing happened and then
the next and the next, and sooner or later, you feel you’re in a rut."
It was the sort of game that could have destroyed a player’s confidence. Miller
survived, but when fate decided to display its sense of humor and have the Rams and Titans
meet in a rematch in the Super Bowl, the immediate reaction was to run and check
Miller’s hands for a case of the shakes.
"I’m not up nights thinking about it," Miller said. "I felt if we
had been in St. Louis the first game, it would have been a different game then. Even
though it created so much misery, you can look back and see you had fun playing.
"I definitely learned his style and how he likes to rush and his speed. It will be
sweet to have the key matchup like this in the biggest event in the world."
Of course, everyone sounds confident before they play the game. Could Miller’s
bravado withstand the blazing speed of Kearse’s pass rush?
The answer was yes. Kearse was not invisible during the Super Bowl, but he was held
without a sack.
"I definitely feel a bit vindicated," Miller said.
Dick Vermeil stepped up to the plate and delivered.
A change was needed heading into the 1999 season.
The big question was whether that change would be that the head coach changed his ways
or that the organization had to change its head coach.
The Rams had gone 5-11 and 4-12 in Vermeil’s first two seasons as the Rams’
head coach, and the players were unhappy about more than just the lack of wins.
A possible rebellion loomed over the fact that Vermeil’s grueling practices left
the players with nothing in the tank for game days. Rather than squash the potential
mutiny with an iron fist, Vermeil chose to ease up in training camp and in-season
practices. It was also apparent that Vermeil needed to delegate more authority, and he did
just that — most notably on offense where Martz was able to put in place the
offensive system that took spectacular advantage of the explosive playmakers on the
roster.
"Dick Vermeil has been fabulous this year," Fletcher said. "He has
changed somewhat even though he doesn’t like to admit it. He is listening more to his
assistant coaches and to his veteran players. He has cut back on the amount of physical
contact we were having in years past. The enthusiasm level has picked up, based on those
subtle changes that he has made. Guys want to come to work. They want to get out on the
practice field, and in the games we are as fresh in the fourth quarter as we are in the
first quarter."
Although Vermeil may have adapted, he didn’t go so far as to let the inmates run
the asylum.
"The (players) come to me to ask the coach for things," Rams LB Mike Jones
said. "I remember one time in December it was very cold, so the guys sent me to see
Coach about moving practice inside. When I asked, Coach Vermeil was very casual and said
OK. So then I said, ‘Can we get the day off?’ Coach said, ‘Mike, even you
have limits.’ "
The new and improved Vermeil was still the same old, driven Vermeil in some regards,
such as his incredible focus on his football team.
When the whole world was caught up in a Y2K frenzy, Vermeil said, "I don’t
even know what it stands for. I’m the most narrow person in the world during the
football season."
Vermeil also admitted that he didn’t learn that Wisconsin RB Ron Dayne had won the
Heisman Trophy until about a week after the results had been announced.
"That’s maybe embarrassing, but it’s the truth," Vermeil said.
Vermeil changed where it mattered most, though, and the wins followed. By the time the
season was over, there was one more change for Vermeil to savor.
Immediately after the Rams won the Super Bowl, speculation swirled about whether he
would choose to retire, and Vermeil said, "For two years, people have been wanting to
know when I was going to be fired. Now they want to know how long I’m going to coach.
I like this a lot better."
The entire team stepped up to the plate and delivered.
The Rams’ defense scored eight touchdowns during the regular season and improved
from 10th in the NFL in 1998 to sixth in ’99.
The kickoff- and punt-return teams scored three touchdowns of their own.
There wasn’t much the Rams didn’t do well en route to capturing the Super
Bowl.
It was an amazing turnaround for the long-suffering Rams, who hadn’t posted a
winning season since 1989. It even got to the point in 1999 where opposing clubs were
accusing the Rams of running up the score.
That’s a huge contrast to when Fletcher joined the Rams two years earlier, and the
thought running through his mind was, "The Rams? They never win any games."
Carter said, "Who would have ever thought that the same old, sorry Rams would be
in the Super Bowl. If you would have asked anybody at the beginning of the season, they
would have never thought we would be here."
Then Warner shocked the world with how well he replaced Green. Then Warner’s
teammates followed suit and shocked the world with how well they played. When the dust
settled, the Rams had seven players performing in the Pro Bowl, enjoying the free trip to
paradise in Hawaii.
"I think we might rent a Rams yacht," Rams CB Todd Lyght said at the time.
Not bad for a team that, immediately after Green’s injury, looked as though it
should book passage on the Titanic.
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