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Rams have sage on their side
Posted: Tuesday October 19, 1999 01:11 PM
Week 6 Awards | Top 10 Teams | 10 Things I Think I Think Click here to send a question to Peter King's NFL Mailbag. BOSTON -- Having grown up halfway between Boston and New York in northern Connecticut, you know I want to write about the Armageddon Series. I will. And let me say this before getting to one of the strangest things I've heard in a while covering the NFL: The view from Section 14, Row 2, Seat 24 for Saturday's game-to-end-all-games in the ALCS was pretty fine. Now to the weird story with the weird smell wafting around the Rams. Howard Balzer is a friend of mine. He used to write the NFL column -- darned well, I might add -- for The Sporting News, and now does it for Pro Football Weekly. He also does radio shows for KFNS, the all-sports station in St. Louis, centered on the local football club. Since the Rams moved from Anaheim to St. Louis in 1995, Balzer has chronicled with increasing frustration the Murphy's Law franchise of this league, which, entering this season, was the losingest NFC team of the decade. "There's always been more in-joking here than anything else, that there's a curse around this franchise,'' Balzer told me the other day. "No matter what they do, it doesn't work. For example, Lawrence Phillips being arrested a month after they draft him. Even when they make the right decision, it doesn't work. Jerome Bettis goes to Pittsburgh, Troy Drayton to Miami after they've given up on them here, and they have good careers. And freaky plays. One preseason game, Will Furrer is trying to make the Rams as a backup quarterback, and he's driving late in the game for a touchdown, and he throws a pass that bounces off the officials' shoulder; it's returned for a touchdown. I go on the air on my KFNS talk show the next day, and I say: 'This franchise is cursed.' "Fast-forward a year, and we go into the San Diego preseason game again, and Trent Green, who'd played so well in the preseason, who everyone thought was really going to be the quarterback they needed to finally be respectable, gets hurt. Out for the year. "I run into [Rams executive VP] Jay Zygmunt that night and say: 'This franchise is cursed.' Jay says he's been on the phone with [president] John Shaw, who wasn't at the game, and Shaw asked him: Did you do something in a previous life? "So I go home. It's not like I've ever been incredibly spiritual, [but] I've always believed things happen for a reason, that there is no such things as coincidence. I believe in teams of destiny. And I just think there's something around this team that isn't right. "That Monday, I'm listening to our station to hear what people are saying. One of the hosts starts talking about the curse. There've always been rumors the stadium was built on an ancient Indian burial ground. I called in. I said, 'I always believed the curse had something to do with Carroll Rosenbloom, and the strange circumstances surrounding his death. [Rosenbloom drowned 20 years ago, and the suspicious death has always had an air of there-was-something-more-to-that-than-a-simple-drowning.] "So the host says, 'You should do a seance on your first pregame show.' So I start thinking about it. I know this psychic. Every spring, my wife and I go to the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas. This lady I got to know camped out near us. She has a booth at the festival where she does readings. She's from Corpus Christi. We've gotten to know her, and so I decide to call her. "While I start to explain what's happened, she's turning over cards. And she says: 'There is strong negative energy around this team. And they brought it from somewhere else.' "I got chills. She says to me: 'The bad news is, there's definitely something there. The good news is, you can do something about it.' " 'What?' I said. " 'Burn sage,' she said. "She tells me sage is an herb used to cleanse whatever -- the environment, your life -- of negative energy, and create positive energy. I explain everything to her, and she tells me, 'You've got to burn it in the locker room.' Well, they'd really think I'm nuts. I decided to do it at Planet Hollywood, across from the Dome, because that's where the pre-game show I do broadcasts. She also tells me I have to get other people to buy into it and help me, I have to come up with a chant. "I remember the Mets from 1969, and so the chant I come up with is: 'You gotta believe.' After that, my wife's visiting family in Las Vegas, and before I tell her what chant we're going to use, we're talking about how the Rams beat Detroit in the final preseason game, and she says: 'Just goes to show you. You gotta believe.' I never said that saying to her. I'm thinking, This is too eerie. "The night before the first game, against Baltimore, I'm up late catching up on some reading. I open up this NFL PR packet, and there's something about NFL players' superstitions. It says [Ram linebacker] Todd Collins believes in an old Indian fetish involving rubbing charms and stones on the body where he's had a previous injury. "So the next day, I'm walking from where I park my car to Planet Hollywood to do the pre-game show. And I pass a car that's just parking. Who gets out? Grant Wistrom, Jeff Robinson, Todd Collins. Now I get chills. There was a reason I read that stuff the night before. I tell Todd I was reading about the Indian fetish. He said: 'Hey, works for me. That's all that matters. You think I'm crazy?' "'Nah,' I said. 'Wait till you hear what I'm doing.' And I told him. So we burn the incense during the show, and I had people chanting, 'You gotta believe.' During the game, [Baltimore kicker] Matt Stover hits the upright on a field goal. [Baltimore corner] Chris McAllister intercepts a pass, falls down on the Ram six, not tackled. They settle for a field goal. The Rams end up winning. "We keep burning the sage. Same thing happens to me before the Atlanta game the next week -- I park, I see Todd Collins parking and going into the stadium. The Rams beat Atlanta, and people start really talking about it. I found some shops where they sell the sage in something they call wands, almost wrapped like a cigar. I buy it one place and the lady says: 'You taking this to the Rams game?' They win at Cincinnati. I hear they're burning the sage in the stands, and there was a sign that said: 'Smell the Sage.' Then they beat the 49ers to snap the long losing streak to them, and Todd Collins comes over to me on the field, slaps my hand, and says: 'Sage, baby!'" Yesterday's postscript: In Atlanta, the Rams continued the magic carpet ride, 41-13. "You don't want to be the story,'' Balzer said. "You don't want to take credit for anything. But there's something going on here. Whether burning the sage has added a spiritual element that's helped this team, who knows? Who can explain it? When you combine this with Kurt Warner's tremendous confidence and tremendous play so far, maybe that's what's made this whole thing so powerful.'' Week 6 Awards OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: St. Louis RB Marshall Faulk, who gained 181 yards on 18 carries against a run defense that had bottled up Ricky Williams like some waiver-wire project the week before. Faulk is providing the Rams the exact kind of 1-2 punch with the passing game that Dick Vermeil designed when St. Louis traded second- and fifth-round picks -- a great deal for the Rams -- to Indianapolis for him before the draft. DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Miami CB Sam Madison, who put these incredible numbers on the board in Miami's 31-30 win at New England: Terry Glenn, 0 catches, 0 yards. "What a performance,'' said coach Jimmy Johnson. "To shut out a guy like Terry Glenn is a great job.'' And valuable. The Patriots could never get their vaunted offense rolling because Madison was so effective at taking Glenn out of the game. He did so with a combination of physical and clinging play which should be required viewing for all AFC East cornerbacks. SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Miami K Olindo Mare, for his six-field-goal day in the win at New England. It's the fourth straight game he's had at least four field goals. His last one was a gem, a 53-yarder that could have been a 63-yarder and brought the Dolphins close enough so a late touchdown could win the game. He also wins the understated quote of the week award. "Actually,'' he said afterward, "it was my best day." COACH OF THE WEEK: San Diego coach Mike Riley. For one reason: I can't believe with that offense the Chargers are 4-1. I would have bet you the latte sitting right next to me right now the Chargers would have been in last place, not first, by mid-October. GOAT OF THE WEEK: New Orleans coach Mike Ditka. Happy 60th birthday, Mike. (Your wife, by the way, says she's giving you a Viagra cake tonight.) But the finger? To the fans who've loved you but who are now angry about the Aints' ineptitude? And the grabbed crotch? Bush league. The Top 10 1. St. Louis (5-0) The 10 Things I Think I Think This Week 1. I think the next time I complain about any minute aspect of my life, feel free to slap me one. Driving through the greatest foliage on the planet Saturday morning from Logan Airport to Foxboro, doing some interviews at Patriots headquarters, motoring back to Boston, dropping the car off, walking through Back Bay on the way to Fenway on a perfect fall day, watching the Armageddon Game, then coming back Sunday to watch two of the 50 best quarterbacks who ever lived duel for one of their last times ever, and then downing two Legal Seafoods clam chowders for dinner ... I mean, what a great life I have. You can't invent a better sporting weekend than that. 2. I think Pete Carroll said it right the other day when he told me: "What a weekend for sports up here!" Add this one for Carroll: His son, Brennan, is a backup tight end for Pitt, the homecoming opponent for Boston College on Saturday. The game was at 5. Carroll saw the first half, then buzzed over to the team hotel for Saturday night meetings. 3. I think Michael Irvin, all things considered, is a lucky man. As I reported Sunday on CNN, the Dallas receiver signed a new contract that has to feel like a nice buffer against the kind of career-threatening hit he got in Philadelphia eight days ago. And he signed it just five days before the Eagles game. Lucky break for him. Breaking down the complicated contract: Irvin was due a $2,358,200 salary this year and then would hit the free-agency market next February. But who would pay chancy money for a 34-year-old wideout on the downside of his career in 2000? So owner Jerry Jones -- very quietly, because no one has reported this in Texas yet, despite the intense interest around Irvin -- renegotiated the base salary down to $1,333,221 and handed Irvin a signing bonus of $1,825,000. That means Irvin will earn $3,158,221, which is $800,021 more than he would have received under his old contract. Got that straight? The weirdness is that Irvin has already gained the right to nullify the contract -- at his choosing, if he desires, after the season -- by catching his third touchdown pass right after he and Jones finished negotiating it. He caught his third TD against Arizona, so by the time the league approved the deal on Oct. 5, he'd already earned one of the things that would void the deal. If he doesn't void, Irvin would make $3 million in 2000, escalating by $1 million a year through 2005. 4. I think Jeff George ought to be the Minnesota quarterback from here on out. Especially after I hear Randall Cunningham say: "I applaud Denny [Green] for making the move.'' 5. I think Brian Griese ought to be the Denver quarterback from here on out. I can't believe Mike Shanahan would really go back to Bubby Brister, which he threatens to do this week. Mike, there's a time to be loyal to your players. This week is not that time. 6. I think the New England loss yesterday -- after leading 14-0 against Miami and watching Dan Marino leave the game and having the league's most obnoxious fans on your side -- will be one that Bob Kraft points to quietly when the Patriots eventually fire Carroll. 7. I think this is the beginning of the end of the 49ers. 8. I think Tennessee is a pretty soft 5-1, but the Titans have done something -- with Cleveland and Cincinnati still to play -- that just about assures them a tiebreaker edge come January: The Titans are 4-0 in AFC games. 9. I think life doesn't get much better than John Valentin homering off Roger Clemens in the first inning Saturday. 10. I think -- and pardon me, Philadelphia -- that I'm not putting on my track shoes to jump on that Eagles bandwagon. Click here to send a question to Peter King's NFL Mailbag.
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