Lawrence McCutcheon and the 1975 Postseason

The 1975 NFC Divisional Playoffs featured the St. Louis Cardinals visiting the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Rams at first tried to focus on using their ground attack. It was the age-old adage…keep using it until your opponent shows that they are able to stop it or at least slow it down. The Cardinals were never able to stop or slow down Lawrence McCutcheon, however.

The young Rams tailback carried the ball a total of 37 times for 202 yards against St. Louis, including over 50 yards in Los Angeles’ first series of the game. The Cardinals defense was not surprised by Coach Knox using McCutcheon so much in this game. They knew that he was their main weapon. But despite their best efforts, they were unable to slow McCutcheon down.

Once Jaworski saw the majority of St. Louis’ defensive attention was focused on the Rams rushing attack, the young quarterback began throwing the ball. Jaworski would complete almost half of his passes in the game for 203 yards and one touchdown, a 66-yard bomb to Harold Jackson. Los Angeles owned a 28-9 lead at halftime, and despite a spirited Cardinals comeback, the Rams coasted during the remainder of the game to post a 35-23 victory.

While Lawrence McCutcheon would gain a great amount of yardage in his team’s divisional playoff game against St. Louis, he would discover that such would not be the case the following week in the 1975 NFC Championship Game against the Cinderella team of the conference that year, the Dallas Cowboys.

In that game, James Harris would start at quarterback for the Rams, and their game plan would be the same as it was versus the Cardinals…simply to give McCutcheon the ball right from the outset. Dallas had a much better and a much stronger defense than St. Louis did, however. The results were staggering, to say the least.