The New York Giants and the Los Angeles Rams have been playing one another since the Rams entered the NFL as the Cleveland Rams in 1938. The Rams played in Cleveland from 1938-45, wining the NFL Championship their final season there before heading to Los Angeles in 1946.
The Giants and Rams both had many successful seasons after the war and played each other many times during the regular season over those years (nine to be exact), but by the time the NFL merged with the AFL in 1970, the two had never faced one another in the post season.
The Rams qualified for the postseason each year from 1973-80, finally going to the Super Bowl in 1979. The Giants, as we know, did not appear in the postseason during that time, but by 1984, were an NFL power on the rise.
In 1984, the Rams — coached by former USC icon John Robinson and led by running back Eric Dickerson (who set the NFL single season rushing record with 2,105 yards), finished second in the NFC West behind the 15-1 San Francisco 49ers, earning a wild card berth with a 10-6 record.
They would host the New York Giants (9-7), who finished second in the NFC East under second-year head coach Bill Parcells and a (finally) healthy Phil Simms at quarterback.
The game took place in Anaheim Stadium, where the Rams moved in 1980 to avoid the television blackout rules that had dogged them while playing in the cavernous, 92,000-plus seat L.A. Coliseum, which was impossible to sell out.
The two teams had met in Week 5 in Anaheim with the Rams winning easily, 33-12, buoyed by their defense which sacked Simms five times and tied a record for safeties in the game with three. The Giants were able to rush for only eight yards on the day while Dickerson rambled for 120 on 22 attempts.
This game would be different. The Rams came into the game having clinched the playoffs in Week 14 while the Giants had to hold on to gain their spot after losing their final two games of the regular season.
Dickerson rushed for 107 yards in the game, but the result would be very different thanks to the Giants’ own resident Hall-of-Famer, Lawrence Taylor.
“The Giants were 5-point underdogs against the Rams, and their offense gained only 192 yards, only 40 on the ground,” wrote the New York Times’ Frank Litzky. “Almost all of Phil Simms’s passes were short, and he completed 22 of 31 for only 179 yards.”
“But the Giants took leads of 10-0 in the first quarter and 13-3 in the third and held on. Bill Currier’s recovery of Dickerson’s first-quarter fumble set up Rob Carpenter’s 1-yard touchdown run, and Ali Haji-Sheikh made his three field-goal attempts – from 37, 39 and 36 yards.
Dickerson’s fumble and Jeff Kemp’s fourth-down fumble with two minutes left in the game resulted from crushing tackles by Lawrence Taylor, the Giants’ all-pro outside linebacker.”
The Giants won, 16-13, and would go on to lose to the 49ers in the Divisional Round the next week. It was beginning of the Giants’ ascent under Parcells that would lead to two Super Bowl championships over the next six seasons.
”You can’t back us in the corner,” said Parcells after the game, ”and not expect us to fight.”
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