By Jim Thomas
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Sunday, Nov. 13 2005
SEATTLE — Late in the first quarter, defensive end
Leonard Little
was in hot pursuit of Seattle running back Shaun Alexander. But as he turned
upfield to make the tackle, Little was flattened by a blindside block from
Seahawks tackle Sean Locklear.
The folks who run the scoreboard at Qwest Field liked the play so much, they
showed it twice on the big stadium replay board, much to the delight of the
sellout crowd of 67,192.
"It looked a whole lot worse than what it was," Little said. "He caught me on
the shoulder. I guess it was just a wake-up call for me to let me know I was
back playing."
Little returned to the lineup for the first time since Oct. 17 in Indianapolis,
the night his younger brother Jermaine was shot to death in Tennessee. After
returning home for two weeks to grieve with his family, Little started against
the Seahawks.
"I was a little rusty," Little said. "I'd been out for a few weeks. I've got to
keep working and fighting and get back into it."
According to unofficial press box stats, Little finished with a modest four
tackles Sunday. He had no sacks on a day when the Rams' entire defensive unit
went without a sack for the first time this season.
The Seahawks finished with 417 yards of offense, and Alexander gouged the St.
Louis defense for 165 yards rushing and three touchdowns.
"We missed a whole lot of tackles," Little said. "That was the big thing with
(Alexander). Most of those runs he had, we had him hemmed up, and he broke a
tackle and made a lot of yards on it. So the tackling was pretty poor."
More costly penalties
Interim head coach Joe Vitt brought in two referees to monitor practice in
recent weeks in an effort to cut down on penalties. It didn't help Sunday when
the Rams were flagged eight times for 49 yards, with many of the penalties
costly.
"It's very disappointing," Vitt said. "The offsides. The offensive holding.
False starts. It's something that we've really emphasized the last two weeks in
practice, but we continue to do those things the same way, and get the same
results."
A holding penalty against rookie right tackle
Alex Barron nullified a touchdown
pass to Brandon Manumaleuna late in the third quarter. The Rams had to settle
for a field goal.
Offside penalties against Little, linebacker
Pisa Tinoisamoa and defensive end
Brandon Green helped keep two Seattle TD drives and a field-goal drive alive.
Terrell takes a seat
With Tom Nutten a pregame scratch because of a neck injury, rookie Claude
Terrell made his third start of the season at left guard. But Terrell didn't
finish the game, getting replaced by Rex Tucker in the third quarter.
"The plan going in was to give Tucker a little work," Vitt said.
If so, Terrell wasn't aware of the plan.
"Coach just took me out," Terrell said. "There was no plan for no rotation, or
anything. He took me out. ... I had missed a (pass) protection, and that was
the end of that."
Other inactives
Besides Nutten, other pregame inactives for the Rams were RB Aveion Cason, CB
Terry Fair, DT Brian Howard, CB Chris Johnson, WR Dominique Thompson and TE
Darius Williams.
Newly signed David Allen handled punt return and kickoff return chores for the
Rams. Allen showed some potential, but his overall numbers weren't great. He
averaged eight yards on two punt returns and 18.7 yards on six kickoff returns.
Bruce moves up
Isaac Bruce caught only one pass for 16 yards in his return to action Sunday,
but that moved him ahead of Michael Irvin into 11th place on the NFL career
list for receiving yards. Bruce now has 12,905 yards.
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