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D'Marco Farr looks back at the Greatest Show on Turf
By Nick Wagoner
http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/12313/dmarco-farr-looks-back-at-the-greatest-show
EARTH CITY, Mo. -- The St. Louis Rams are celebrating the 15th anniversary of their Super Bowl XXXIV championship during next week's "Monday Night Football" matchup against the San Francisco 49ers.
With that in mind, we are spending this week doing some reminiscing with some of the key players from that team, and we will take a bigger-picture look back later in the week.
We continue the series by asking D'Marco Farr, one the stalwart of that team's defense, five questions about that season.
Wagoner: When did you know that season could be special?
Farr: When I saw Trent Green break the huddle right out here, right there as a matter of fact. When I saw him break the huddle and he got under center and started barking out signals. I just kind of had this feeling we had a real quarterback finally. I just had a feeling that was what we had kind of been missing. All due respect to the guys before him but you just felt more calm with him. Then I thought we had a chance to be good. Then when you saw Marshall come out here, things just changed a whole lot and I thought we had a chance to be really, really good.
Wagoner: What as your favorite memory of that season?
Farr: Just the end. The ticker tape coming down after we won and the journey from being a rookie free agent and the same group of guys coming over from L.A. coming here, getting all set up, coming from Matthews-Dickey, that’s the same group of guys up on the podium getting the trophy and they’re my teammates and you can’t take it away. That whole moment, that whole celebration right at the end of the game when we’re all on the field together was my favorite moment.
Wagoner: What was the most underappreciated thing about that team?
Farr: The defense, definitely the defense. We actually had a pretty good defense in ’98, ’97, ’96, we were pretty good, we just weren’t very good and didn’t know how to win games. So whenever people talk about the Greatest Show on Turf now, they always talk about the offense but there was defense and special teams attached, too. Just the underrated part was how hard we worked. I know it seemed like it was easy on game day but we had a bunch of guys that loved to work out here.
Wagoner: What was the toughest part of that season?
Farr: The toughest part was actually trying to get Coach [Dick] Vermeil to understand that you don’t have to kill us every day. Dead serious. He only knew one way to do it and it was brutal. It was throwback-type football. It worked, he got us in condition but it really did take a toll on us. Trying to get him to change his mind to give us more freedom, it was like growing up and asking your parents for the car keys for the first time. Trust me, we’ll be OK. Getting him to dial it back some was a huge deal and once it happened, you see what happened.
Wagoner: What would you like the legacy of that team to be?
Farr: Wow. Just wow. I’d want people to say I’ve never seen anything like that and you probably never well. This is funny and I don’t want to take shots at any other champion out there, anybody that wears a ring like me but I would take our team versus anybody in history. Anybody. And we’ll win going away.
By Nick Wagoner
http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/12313/dmarco-farr-looks-back-at-the-greatest-show
EARTH CITY, Mo. -- The St. Louis Rams are celebrating the 15th anniversary of their Super Bowl XXXIV championship during next week's "Monday Night Football" matchup against the San Francisco 49ers.
With that in mind, we are spending this week doing some reminiscing with some of the key players from that team, and we will take a bigger-picture look back later in the week.
We continue the series by asking D'Marco Farr, one the stalwart of that team's defense, five questions about that season.
Wagoner: When did you know that season could be special?
Farr: When I saw Trent Green break the huddle right out here, right there as a matter of fact. When I saw him break the huddle and he got under center and started barking out signals. I just kind of had this feeling we had a real quarterback finally. I just had a feeling that was what we had kind of been missing. All due respect to the guys before him but you just felt more calm with him. Then I thought we had a chance to be good. Then when you saw Marshall come out here, things just changed a whole lot and I thought we had a chance to be really, really good.
Wagoner: What as your favorite memory of that season?
Farr: Just the end. The ticker tape coming down after we won and the journey from being a rookie free agent and the same group of guys coming over from L.A. coming here, getting all set up, coming from Matthews-Dickey, that’s the same group of guys up on the podium getting the trophy and they’re my teammates and you can’t take it away. That whole moment, that whole celebration right at the end of the game when we’re all on the field together was my favorite moment.
Wagoner: What was the most underappreciated thing about that team?
Farr: The defense, definitely the defense. We actually had a pretty good defense in ’98, ’97, ’96, we were pretty good, we just weren’t very good and didn’t know how to win games. So whenever people talk about the Greatest Show on Turf now, they always talk about the offense but there was defense and special teams attached, too. Just the underrated part was how hard we worked. I know it seemed like it was easy on game day but we had a bunch of guys that loved to work out here.
Wagoner: What was the toughest part of that season?
Farr: The toughest part was actually trying to get Coach [Dick] Vermeil to understand that you don’t have to kill us every day. Dead serious. He only knew one way to do it and it was brutal. It was throwback-type football. It worked, he got us in condition but it really did take a toll on us. Trying to get him to change his mind to give us more freedom, it was like growing up and asking your parents for the car keys for the first time. Trust me, we’ll be OK. Getting him to dial it back some was a huge deal and once it happened, you see what happened.
Wagoner: What would you like the legacy of that team to be?
Farr: Wow. Just wow. I’d want people to say I’ve never seen anything like that and you probably never well. This is funny and I don’t want to take shots at any other champion out there, anybody that wears a ring like me but I would take our team versus anybody in history. Anybody. And we’ll win going away.
