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Rams are runoff winners
By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_b0f1587b-cf80-537f-8610-64c8acfb3df4.html
TAMPA, Fla. • Linebacker James Laurinaitis was eavesdropping on the officials, as usual, when he heard referee Jeff Triplette whisper to a member of his crew: “It’s gonna be a 10-second runoff.”
“I always try to listen to what they’re talking about,” Laurinaitis said. “You gotta try to get on their good side.”
There were only 8 seconds left in the game at the time, so Laurinaitis knew that with the runoff the game was over and the Rams had somehow escaped with a 19-17 victory Sunday over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“I was wanting to run off the field. I wanted to get out of here,” Laurinaitis said. “I didn’t want them to debate anything any longer.”
There was no debate. Thanks to a crunching hit and tackle by strong safety T.J. McDonald, rookie wide receiver Mike Evans couldn’t get up after a 29-yard reception to the Rams’ 32.
Evans lay on the ground for a while as the clock ran down. Finally, some teammates tried to rush him off the field. But it was too late; there were fewer than 10 seconds left.
By league rule, a team that is out of timeouts and then has one of its players go down with an injury is subject to the run-off. It’s designed to prevent teams that are trailing from faking injuries to stop the clock.
In his long coaching career, Rams coach Jeff Fisher has never seen a game end that way — on a clock run-off. Then again, there were a lot of unusual things that took place on this day at Raymond James Stadium.
Included in that category was a 50-minute delay with 6 minutes, 3 seconds to play in the first half because of lightning in the area. (Fisher said he’s been a part of such a delay only once, during a preseason game many years ago.)
The Rams blocked not one, but two kicks — one a punt, and another a field goal attempt — with McDonald getting a paw on both kicks.
The game went back-and-forth, with the lead changing five times, before the fourth of Greg Zuerlein’s four field goals — a 38-yarder with 38 seconds to play — gave the Rams their 19-17 lead.
“I don’t know if I ever had a game like this,” McDonald said. “The delay, the up-and-down throughout the game. We took the lead, they took the lead. There was a lot of stuff going on. But I think with this team, the biggest thing is we stayed focused. We kept grinding.”
Actually, no one has seen a game like this.
As left guard Rodger Saffold aptly put it: “We’ve had some close ones before, but I might’ve (aged) a couple years with this one.”
It took a clutch throw by quarterback Austin Davis and an equally clutch catch by wide receiver Austin Pettis to make this one possible.
On third and 9 from the St. Louis 48 and under 2 minutes to play, Davis found Pettis running deep down the middle for a 27-yard completion — the biggest pass play of the day for the Rams.
Pettis stands 6-3 and has long arms. If his arms were a couple of inches shorter, he may not have come down with the high throw.
“That play AP made down the seam — that’s huge,” Davis said. “I can’t commend him enough. Game’s on the line and he goes and makes a play.”
On the play, Davis said the Rams sent four receivers on deep routes straight down the field — or “verticals” — and went on a quick cadence to try to catch Tampa defenders close to the line of scrimmage.
The Buccaneers’ coverage rotated over to Kenny Britt, who was lined up outside, and that made Davis’ next read Pettis on the seam route.
“So I stepped and fired as hard as I could,” said Davis, whose parents made the trip from Mississippi for the game.
And there was Pettis. Remember him? Seemingly lost on the depth chart since about midseason last year, Pettis got his chance to play slot receiver Sunday when Tavon Austin suffered a right knee injury on the last play before the lightning delay and could not return.
Pettis finished with three catches for 46 yards. He had a third-down catch for a first down with 5 minutes left in the third quarter, setting up Zuerlein’s second field goal of the day to trim Tampa’s lead to 14-13.
Later in that drive, he dropped what look like a first-down catch in the red zone on third down, forcing the field goal. But he more than made up for that with the 27-yarder.
“Pettis is a team player,” Fisher said. “He helps the young guys. He knows exactly what to do. Every time you give him a chance to make a play he makes one.”
Truth be told, Pettis has become a survivor, a cockroach, if you will. You just can’t kill him off.
“I guess not,” Pettis said. “Hopefully, I’ll live a little longer.”
Davis, who received the game ball from Fisher, completed 22 of 29 passes for 235 yards and a passer rating of 99.1. He didn’t throw a touchdown pass, but he didn’t throw an interception either, and generally played efficient, mistake-free football.
“He has a good feel for the offense,” Fisher said. “He made good decisions, handled the run checks very well, and the play-action. He gave receivers opportunities to make plays.”
But mistakes kept the Rams from taking control of the game. The Rams cut their penalties by more than half as compared to the season opener, with only five for 65 yards. Even so, they seemed to come at the most inopportune times.
For openers, two offsides penalties (one of which was declined by Tampa) and a horse-collar flag got the Bucs going on their first drive, which ended in the first of two touchdown runs by quarterback Josh McCown.
A roughing the passer flag against linebacker Jo-Lonn Dunbar — on third down, no less — kept a Tampa drive alive that resulted in rookie Patrick Murray’s first NFL field goal and a 17-16 Bucs lead with 5:15 to play.
Fisher said Dunbar hit McCown in the shoulder on the play, so it wasn’t a helmet-to-helmet hit and shouldn’t have been roughing the passer.
“It could’ve cost us the game,” Dunbar said.
But it didn’t. That made it, as the baseball Cardinals used to say, a happy flight home. Delayed as it was.
