Vince Ferragamo: Playoff game like going ‘back in time’

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By Rene Ray De La Cruz
Staff Writer
@DP_ReneDeLaCruz
Posted at 3:24 PMUpdated at 3:43 PM

VICTORVILLE — Former Los Angeles Rams quarterback Vince Ferragamo, and many fans of the team, said the home playoff game with the Atlanta Falcons this weekend will be like going back in time.

When the teams meet at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, it will be nearly 40 years since the Rams last played a playoff down at the historic stadium that housed the team for over three decades before the Rams moved to Anaheim.

Quarterback Vince Ferragamo, who lead the Rams to the Super Bowl in 1980, told the Daily Press he’s excited the team is back in the Super Bowl hunt, adding that the playoff game is like stepping back in time.

“I’m picking L.A. to beat the Falcons, but the Rams are going to have their hands full,” said Ferragamo, 63, who played for the team from 1977 to 1980 and 1982 to1984. “It will be two great teams playing in a historic stadium that once hosted the Olympics, the Super Bowl and the Los Angeles Dodgers.”

Ferragamo said it was a “privilege and honor” to play for the Rams, a team of athletes who played with “heart, grit and integrity.”

Ferragamo and the Rams beat the two-time defending NFC champion Dallas Cowboys 21–19 in the Divisional Playoffs, then the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 9–0 in the NFC championship game to represent the conference in the Super Bowl.

Ferragamo said he will watch Saturday’s game at the Coliseum, where he will offer his analysis for Fox 11.

Season ticket holder Richard Bounce, who will attend Saturday’s game with his grandson, Adam, told the Daily Press he fondly remembers the team playing in Los Angeles until it left for the land of Disneyland during the 1980 season, then for St. Louis about 14 years later.

“I grew up in the L.A. area so the Coliseum was like home to me,” said Bounce, owner of Bounce Realty in Apple Valley. “I went to the first Super Bowl and watched the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers at the Coliseum in 1967. We sat about the 50-yard line and I remember the tickets being 10 bucks at the time.”

He said he’d like to see a repeat of the 1980 Super Bowl between the Rams and the Pittsburgh Steelers, but only if Los Angeles wins. The Rams lost that Super Bowl 31-19 before a sellout crowd at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

Bounce, who is a “bigger Oakland Raiders fan,” said he has a a few Steeler fans who like to hold up six fingers to indicate the number of Super Bowls the team has won.

“It would be cool to see the Rams get the victory, especially over the Steelers — then we’ll see if they hold up fingers,” Bounce said. “And how cool and ironic would it be for the Rams to win a championship during their second year after coming back from St. Louis.”

Several fans, including Bounce, said the St. Louis Rams’ Super Bowl victory over the Titans in 1999 was a good win, but it wasn’t a “Los Angeles win.”

Ferragamo said it will be bittersweet when the Rams leave the 94-year-old Coliseum in 2020 for the new, state-of-the-art stadium under construction in Inglewood.

“It’s going to be a fascinating campus, with a new stadium, hotels, parks, retail, restaurants and single family homes,” said Ferragamo, who owns Touchdown Realty in Orange County and owns property in Victorville. “It’ll be a whole new world for the Rams and the Chargers when they start playing there.”

Gabe Hernandez, a member of the “Old Skool Rams from the High Desert” Facebook group, said he is planning an “Old Skool Tailgate” party at Lot 6 of the Coliseum at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, about five hours before the game.