His Message Is Loud and Clear : All Jerome Brown’s Talk Is Worth More Than Just That in Eagle Victory Over Rams

PHILADELPHIA —  Jerome Brown’s game against the Rams officially began Saturday evening at a Philadelphia Eagles’ players-only meeting in which Brown, as he is known to do on occasion, yakked himself into a frenzy.

Brown, you may remember, is the same guy who, attired in combat fatigues at the time, led his University of Miami teammates out of a Fiesta Bowl banquet 2 years ago. He is the one who gave the famous “Did the Japanese sit down and have dinner with Pearl Harbor before they bombed her?” speech. He is the one who said, “We didn’t come here to act monkeys for everybody.”

Face it, Jerome knows how to give good meeting.

This time he stood in front of the Eagles and pleaded for emotion. He asked that they play hard every game, a pointed reference to an earlier loss to the Atlanta Falcons. He said that he was weary of losing.

Brown added some other adjectives of his own, but you get the idea. He was mad.

Then came an impassioned speech from Eagle reserve quarterback Matt Cavanaugh, who, said Brown, “gave the most important speech.”

“He was just saying that it all comes from the heart,” Brown said. “Deep down, you’ve got to make yourself a champion.”

Brown doesn’t take this sort of motivation lightly. He arrived Sunday at Veterans Stadium on “a mission,” as Coach Buddy Ryan explained it.

After a tipped pass, an interception, a forced fumble, a near-sack that caused a game-ending interception and a game ball for his efforts, Brown could rest easy--sort of. The Eagles had a 30-24 victory and a 5-5 record.

Now if he could only enjoy it.

“Man, I’m not happy with nothing I do,” he said. “You never hear me say I’m happy.”

He should be. Brown played without the benefit of his usual backup help--Mike Golic, who was placed on injured reserve Friday. Then he found himself matched against guard Tom Newberry, perhaps the most physical player on the Rams’ offensive line. To prove the point, Newberry & Co. knocked Brown on his back early in the first quarter.

“I don’t know about that,” said Brown, feigning indignation. “I must have tripped or something.”

But Ryan had a theory about all of this. He said that Brown played better because Golic wasn’t there.

“(Brown’s) a big-time football player,” Ryan said. “The No. 1 substitute got hurt so he had to play the whole game. That probably helped him.”

Said Brown: “I hope that ain’t the reason (Golic) did it.”

Whatever the reason--the Saturday meeting, the lack of a backup--it worked. Brown played as if he had something to prove: to himself and to his team.

A month ago, when the Eagles played the New York Giants, Ryan stuck a football card of quarterback Phil Simms next to Brown’s locker room nameplate. It was the kind of grade-school psychology that Brown describes “as him just messing with me.”

No such ploys needed against the Rams. Brown, still hyper from his Saturday night speech, played perhaps his best game of the season.

In the third quarter, with the Eagles holding a 17-10 lead, Brown stripped the ball from running back Charles White. The Eagles recovered the fumble and later made a field goal.

“I just tried to tackle him and I stripped him at the same time,” Brown said.

On the first play of the fourth period, the score still 20-10, Brown batted a Jim Everett pass into the air, looked upward and then softly cradled the ball into his hands for an unlikely interception. This time the turnover cost the Rams a touchdown as the Eagles scored four plays later.

Brown’s interception return wasn’t a classic. In fact, Brown lost 5 yards on the run.

“Why you run backwards?” asked Eagle defensive end Reggie White afterward.

Brown tried to explain, but with little success.

“I wasn’t running the wrong way, if that’s what y’all are thinking,” Brown said. “I was trying to get behind some blocking. (Laughter from White.) The guy said that if I had turned around and run the other way, I had a touchdown, but I couldn’t see.”

Brown ended the afternoon in an unfamiliar place--the Ram pass pocket. It was the play of the game: a third-and-20 situation at the Eagle 28, 24 seconds remaining.

All day long Brown had tried to slip past Newberry using a variety of moves, including something called, “The Tonga.” That’s where Brown fakes an inside rush and then darts to the outside.

This time it worked. Newberry went for the fake, allowing Brown to go for an unprotected Everett. Brown, arms upraised, lunged at Everett as the Ram quarterback released the ball. Waiting at the 7-yard line was Eagle safety William Frizzell, who collected Everett’s wobbly pass, putting an end to the Ram rally.

Back on the 35-yard line was Brown, rolling on the ground with glee, acting as if the Eagles had won much more than their fifth game of the season.

“Reggie was saying in the huddle, ‘We got to make something happen,’ ” Brown said. “I’m saying to myself, ‘Man, I’m tired of this . . . every week. Somebody’s got to do something.’ ”

Somebody did, though don’t tell Brown that. He’s not happy with much of anything--except this win.