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Orlando Pace looks back at the Greatest Show on Turf
By Nick Wagoner
http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/12286/orlando-pace-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 Orlando Pace, the stalwart of that offensive line, five questions about that season.
What was the moment you realized that season could be special?
Pace: I think it was the game that sticks out in my mind was the day we beat the 49ers. Up to that point, I can’t remember the streak, it was like 16, 17 or 18-game losing streak. Everybody in that locker room was trying to distance themselves from that. I wasn’t here for probably 15 of those games. They had been the standard in the NFC West for so long and the Rams hadn’t won. That losing streak was so long. That was a significant victory for us when we knew we had overcome a pretty good team, and we knew if we could beat the 49ers we were pretty special at that point.
What was toughest moment of that season?
Pace: I think we have all beat that story up with Trent Green. But I think for me, the hardest thing was everybody trying to come together as a unit. It was almost like the perfect storm. I was trying to come into my own, [running back] Marshall [Faulk] had just got traded, [receiver] Isaac [Bruce] was probably coming off injury the prior year and [receiver] Torry [Holt] was a young kid. We were all just trying to come together to win. With a new offensive coaching staff and coach [Mike] Martz coming in, we were all trying to come together and become a unit. I think Coach [Dick] Vermeil really brought that whole piece together. He deserves all the credit for that.
What was your favorite moment or memory from that season?
Pace: It’s hard to point out just one moment. The whole season was really special. I remember that first playoff game in St. Louis. It was their first playoff game there and I remember the dome just rocking. I remember feeling like I was walking on air that first drive versus Minnesota, and we go down the first play of the game against Minnesota. It was a really unbelievable feeling. I know a lot of people bring up that Tampa Bay game, but I just remember that first impact of saying 'Wow, we are really in the playoffs.' It was a struggle for the first couple of years there in St. Louis. Then we could actually say 'We are here, we can do this thing.' Our confidence was through the roof.
What was most overlooked thing about that team?
Pace: People always called us a finesse team, right. For me, as an offensive lineman, there is nothing finesse about playing offensive line in the NFL and keeping Marshall with holes and keeping [quarterback] Kurt [Warner] clean. We weren’t a finesse team. We were really a tough team up front. I got a lot of that credit, but I think those other four guys on that offensive line, Adam Timmerman, all those guys that were a part of that, were a physical bunch of guys that really never got their due credit. We did a great job up front of keeping guys clean, opening holes for Marshall that I think that part of our offense really got overlooked.
What would you like the legacy of that team to be?
Pace: We probably should have won more to be honest. But I think ultimately we did it exactly the way we wanted to do it. We were fast and fierce, guys were having fun playing the game and scoring points. We were all about scoring points and doing it as fast as we can. I think that’s the legacy, just going out with the confidence to not care about anything except what was going on on our team. We didn’t care who we were playing.
By Nick Wagoner
http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/12286/orlando-pace-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 Orlando Pace, the stalwart of that offensive line, five questions about that season.
What was the moment you realized that season could be special?
Pace: I think it was the game that sticks out in my mind was the day we beat the 49ers. Up to that point, I can’t remember the streak, it was like 16, 17 or 18-game losing streak. Everybody in that locker room was trying to distance themselves from that. I wasn’t here for probably 15 of those games. They had been the standard in the NFC West for so long and the Rams hadn’t won. That losing streak was so long. That was a significant victory for us when we knew we had overcome a pretty good team, and we knew if we could beat the 49ers we were pretty special at that point.
What was toughest moment of that season?
Pace: I think we have all beat that story up with Trent Green. But I think for me, the hardest thing was everybody trying to come together as a unit. It was almost like the perfect storm. I was trying to come into my own, [running back] Marshall [Faulk] had just got traded, [receiver] Isaac [Bruce] was probably coming off injury the prior year and [receiver] Torry [Holt] was a young kid. We were all just trying to come together to win. With a new offensive coaching staff and coach [Mike] Martz coming in, we were all trying to come together and become a unit. I think Coach [Dick] Vermeil really brought that whole piece together. He deserves all the credit for that.
What was your favorite moment or memory from that season?
Pace: It’s hard to point out just one moment. The whole season was really special. I remember that first playoff game in St. Louis. It was their first playoff game there and I remember the dome just rocking. I remember feeling like I was walking on air that first drive versus Minnesota, and we go down the first play of the game against Minnesota. It was a really unbelievable feeling. I know a lot of people bring up that Tampa Bay game, but I just remember that first impact of saying 'Wow, we are really in the playoffs.' It was a struggle for the first couple of years there in St. Louis. Then we could actually say 'We are here, we can do this thing.' Our confidence was through the roof.
What was most overlooked thing about that team?
Pace: People always called us a finesse team, right. For me, as an offensive lineman, there is nothing finesse about playing offensive line in the NFL and keeping Marshall with holes and keeping [quarterback] Kurt [Warner] clean. We weren’t a finesse team. We were really a tough team up front. I got a lot of that credit, but I think those other four guys on that offensive line, Adam Timmerman, all those guys that were a part of that, were a physical bunch of guys that really never got their due credit. We did a great job up front of keeping guys clean, opening holes for Marshall that I think that part of our offense really got overlooked.
What would you like the legacy of that team to be?
Pace: We probably should have won more to be honest. But I think ultimately we did it exactly the way we wanted to do it. We were fast and fierce, guys were having fun playing the game and scoring points. We were all about scoring points and doing it as fast as we can. I think that’s the legacy, just going out with the confidence to not care about anything except what was going on on our team. We didn’t care who we were playing.
