Fisher faces many reminders of Super Bowl loss to Rams

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Medium-sized Lebowski
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Jim Thomas
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[wrapimg=left]http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/9/f1/9f1f7d99-f060-5350-be9c-91fb3c5aac42/4f1f3864db491.preview-300.jpg[/wrapimg]Two headstrong, confident coaches. Two talented teams with decidedly different approaches to football. At the turn of the millennium, Rams-Titans/Vermeil-Fisher was as heated as rivalries got, particularly for teams playing in opposite conferences.

Almost 12 years ago to the day, the St. Louis Rams and coach Dick Vermeil defeated the Tennessee Titans and Jeff Fisher 23-16 in one of the most exciting Super Bowls.

The story line is all-too familiar. The Rams’ flashy offense jumped to a 16-0 lead; the brawny Titans rallied to tie the game. With time winding down, Kurt Warner threw a touchdown bomb to Isaac Bruce for a 23-16 Rams lead.

With determined Steve McNair at quarterback, the Titans marched down the field only to be stopped when Rams linebacker Mike Jones tackled Titans wide receiver Kevin Dyson just short of the goal line as time expired.

And now, as of two weeks ago, Fisher finds himself coaching the Rams. Once he familiarizes himself with the Rams Park facility, he will find pictures of Bruce’s catch-and-run, the Rams holding the Lombardi Trophy, and yes, Dyson stretching out with the football for the goal line but not quite getting there.

How does Fisher reconcile that memorable game with the fact that he’s coaching the Rams?

"I’m just going to find a way —some way, somehow — to get one more yard, I guess," he said.

Fisher’s defensive coordinator in that Super Bowl, Gregg Williams, now is the Rams’ defensive coordinator. Williams has yet watch a replay of that game.

"The agony of defeat I guess you’d say," Williams said. "I don’t like seeing those impressions in my mind."

THE BEGINNING

The Rams-Titans rivalry started three months earlier in a regular-season contest in Nashville, on Oct. 31, 1999. The Rams came in with a 6-0 record and an average margin of victory of nearly 26 points. Tennessee was 5-1 and rested, coming off its bye week.

The Titans overwhelmed the Rams early, jumping to a 21-0 first-quarter lead. The Rams stormed back, but when Jeff Wilkins' 38-yard field goal attempt missed wide right with 7 seconds to play, the Titans escaped with a 24-21 victory.

The Rams had planned to have their offensive linemen use experimental hearing-aid devices to help block out crowd noise for the game. When the Titans learned of that, they complained to the league office. Three days before kickoff, the league notified the Rams that because member clubs hadn't approved use of the devices, they couldn't be used in the game.

Fisher couldn't resist applying the needle and getting in the Rams' head.

"Word's getting around that Adelphia Coliseum's a tough place to play," Fisher said at the time. "This is a case where the ‘12th man' has altered the preparation for the game. That's a good sign."

And a bad omen for the Rams. They couldn't handle the crowd noise or Titans defensive end Jevon Kearse then, getting flagged eight times for false starts. Six of them were called against bewildered right tackle Fred Miller.

In a strange twist, Miller signed with the Titans in free agency less than two months after the Super Bowl, and went on to play the next five seasons for Fisher.

"He definitely knows how to rally the troops, and get his teams up to play," Miller told the Post-Dispatch after Fisher was hired by the Rams. "He's a great motivator, and St. Louis is getting a great coach in Jeff Fisher."

PUSHING THE BUTTONS

Miller laughed when it was pointed out that Fisher's Titans teams always played with an edge.

"Jeff definitely knows how to push the buttons," Miller said.

Sometimes they were the opponents' "buttons" - such as his comments about the crowd noise in Nashville affecting Rams preparations for the '99 regular season game.

Sometimes they were his own players' "buttons" - as during a couple of post-Super Bowl summer gatherings against the Rams.

"He brought that element to the game and to our locker room," Miller said. "And it's something that you really enjoy. He walked the walk and talked the talk. And he had your back."

SUMMER GET-TOGETHER

Little more than six months after Super Bowl XXXIV, Fisher and the Titans arrived in Macomb, Ill., for three days of practices and a scrimmage at the Rams' training camp site.

Things were civil enough on the first day in Macomb, a Thursday. On the final practice play of the day, Tennessee threw a "Hail Mary" pass into the end zone. Jones leaped to make the play, the ball deflected off his fingertips and into the arms of Kevin Dyson. Touchdown Titans.

"I was kind of hoping that two-minute drive didn't end on the 1-yard line," Fisher joked with reporters afterwards.

Jones and Dyson took part in joint media sessions that Thursday and Friday, a highly unusual occurrence for players on opposite teams. Surrounded by a mob of reporters, they were asked question after question about "The Tackle" while standing in the middle of a practice field at Western Illinois University.

"I really don't want this to be the focus of my career," said Dyson, gracious and accommodating. "I'm 25 years old and in my third year in the league. I've got a long ways to go."

The Macomb love-in ended Friday morning, with several skirmishes. Rams rookie running back Trung Candidate suffered a severely sprained ankle on what the Rams felt was a questionable play by Titans cornerback George McCullough. Rams head coach Mike Martz, who was offensive coordinator during the Super Bowl, kicked receiver/return man Tony Horne off the practice field for throwing a punch. Kearse said Fisher and the Titans' coaching staff didn't like what took place on the practice field that Thursday.

"They wanted us to be more aggressive and stop all that lovey-dovey (stuff) because we're not here to be friends right now; we're here to get some work done," Kearse said.

SUPER BOWL XXXIV½

That Aug. 14 in Nashville, the Rams and Titans got together for the fourth time in 9½ months in a Monday night exhibition game. It was billed as Super Bowl XXXIV½ in Tennessee. There was a rally in Nashville that day. "Rams-Titans, the Re-Match" T-shirts were hot-sellers.

The Rams treated the game like, well, a preseason game. With some help from their coach, the Titans approached it like, well, Super Bowl XXXIV½. Tennessee clobbered the Rams 30-3.

"Jeff built it up to where you have a guy who has taken your bicycle, and what are you going to do about it?" Titans defensive end Kenny Holmes said. "With the Super Bowl, they kind of took our bicycle, and we had to go out there tonight and say we want it back."

The teams played exhibition games against each other the next two preseasons. In the '01 game, the Titans were flagged for five personal fouls and successfully executed a fake punt. (Trick plays are almost never used in the preseason.) Martz complained about all the Tennessee blitzes. Fisher countered by saying the Titans wouldn't blitz so much if the Rams weren't passing every play.

But following the 2002 preseason game, the teams didn't meet again until a 2005 regular-season contest, with interim head coach Joe Vitt on the sidelines in place of Martz, who missed most of the season because of illness.

The rivalry died down. Oddly, the only game Martz won as either an offensive coordinator or head coach against Fisher in five regular-season, postseason, or preseason matchups was the one that mattered most: Super Bowl XXXIV.

Who will be Fisher's big rival now that he's a Ram?
 

Anonymous

Guest
I heard him say in an interview that the photos would remain except for perhaps 'the tackle' as it's still a fresh wound or something to that effect. He's also said that those pictures serve as inspiration to the current players.