Chargers’ Touchdowns an Annoyance to Rams : Scrimmage: San Diego manages only two of them, but both provoke fights.
FULLERTON — The Rams have served notice: They might not outscore their opponents this season, but if a team records a touchdown against them, they will fight.
The San Diego Chargers topped the Rams, 12-6, Saturday in a scrimmage at Cal State Fullerton before an estimated 4,000 fans, and after each of San Diego’s touchdowns, a brawl broke out.
“You can’t have anybody come down to our practice facility and intimidate us,” Ram cornerback Todd Lyght said. “Under Chuck Knox with Ram football the first thing is toughness.”
The Chargers scored first with Stan Humphries throwing an 11-yard pass to running back Eric Bieniemy. The Rams drew a flag for pass interference, although safety Michael Stewart said he had been illegally picked by Charger receiver Shawn Jefferson.
An irritated Stewart pursued Bieniemy to the rear of the end zone and tried to rake the ball from Bieniemy before Bieniemy could spike it. Pushing and shoving started, and Stewart was poked in the eye.
Jefferson, meanwhile, took a running start and clobbered Stewart from behind. Ram defenders Todd Lyght and Anthony Newman then went after Jefferson, and teammate Robert Bailey took on Bieniemy.
“That right there was a cheap shot,” said Newman, who scraped his knee in the fracas. “No. 80 (Jefferson) came and hit Stewart full speed. You don’t hit a guy in the back. That’s why it set off everything.”
After decking Jefferson in retaliation, Newman ended up in a pileup, along with the side judge, on the adjacent all-weather track. It took several coaches and a lot of shouting to restore calm.
“I went for the shorter guy,” said Bailey in explaining why he went after the 5-foot-7 Bieniemy. “I went for the guy who wasn’t looking.
“I looked, and it was two against one (Bieniemy and Jefferson versus Stewart), and I was the closest one there, so I had to do it or my teammates would have gotten on me. Then all hell broke loose. It’s just a good thing Pete Rozelle wasn’t out here. There would have been a lot of fines.”
It’s early in training camp, but someone in the Ram organization will probably get around to informing Bailey that Paul Tagliabue replaced Pete Rozelle as NFL commissioner almost four years ago.
“After I hit Bieniemy,” Bailey said, “the next thing I know we’re under the pile, and we’re talking to each other. I told him I had to do it, and he was saying, ‘That’s the way I like it. I like to fight.’ So we started laughing.”
After the fight, the Rams took possession and appeared energized. Quarterback Jim Everett, who had a rough start on his first offensive series, went 14 yards to rookie tight end Troy Drayton for a tying touchdown.
Drayton, a former wide receiver and the Rams’ No. 2 pick, caught the ball short of the goal line, broke a tackle and then danced into the end zone.
“When I’m in the open field I feel comfortable,” said Drayton, who caught two passes for 27 yards. “I’m able to do a lot of things wide receivers do.”
The Rams began the scrimmage by affording Everett no protection. He was sacked three of the five times he retreated to pass, and while no one was supposed to actually hit the quarterback in the controlled scrimmage, he was downed twice.
Everett was three of six for 41 yards, and then crowd-pleasing T.J. Rubley took command, completing three of four passes for 51 yards and pushing the Rams to the Charger one before Russell White, who ran five times for 19 yards, was denied on fourth and goal.
Charger quarterback John Friesz, making his first appearance after a knee injury sidelined him for the 1992 season, finished the scoring with a 41-yard pass to Johnnie Barnes, who beat cornerback Darryl Henley.
While Barnes held the ball high over his head in the end zone, safety Chris Crooms began exchanging punches with Charger guard Joe Cocozzo at midfield. The skirmish ignited another free-for-all.
Knox later dismissed the scrimmage fighting as no big deal. “It was more pushing than fighting,” he said.
The Rams failed to muster much of a charge on the ground, although Anthony Thompson showed a burst with four carries for 17 yards. And the lack of depth at wide receiver was obvious again. Henry Ellard was out of the lineup to rest a sore ankle, and the Rams picked up only four catches from their other receivers.
But the new-look defense, featuring linebacker Shane Conlan in the middle, made a strong impression in goal-line drills. The Chargers were given four opportunities to try to bull their way in from the two but were stopped on each occasion. Chris Martin, acquired from Kansas City in the off-season, played an instrumental role on two of the four stops.
The Chargers took advantage of several breakdowns in the Ram secondary. Wide receiver Ray Ethridge, criticized for his inability to catch the ball, beat Ram safety Pat Terrell deep but then dropped the pass.
“Defensively, we played very very well,” Knox said. “But the thing that hurt us (during the scrimmage) was four penalties on our defensive line . . . you can’t win if you do that type of thing.
“We had some things happen in the secondary, but you kind of like to see them happen because you get a chance to correct them now when they don’t cost you.”
