Miller’s Injury Promises Playing Time For Rypien

When Mark Rypien went shopping for new teams after being released by Cleveland last winter, he tried to gauge what would be the likelihood of getting into the starting lineup or at least landing considerable playing time.

The St. Louis Rams appeared to give him an excellent chance at that.

And although Rypien would never wish bad fortune on a teammate, it didn’t take long to see that his opportunities to play could be abundant with the Rams.

Starting quarterback Chris Miller didn’t make it through the first period of the first preseason game before he suffered a mild concussion and had to be taken to the hospital.

That allowed Rypien, a Shadle Park High School and Washington State University alum, to take over a little earlier than expected in the exhibition opener against the Seattle Seahawks in the Kingdome Saturday night.

Rypien responded with a 41-yard touchdown pass, although he struggled at times to hold onto the ball.

“Mark made a great throw on the touchdown and it was a big play for us,” said Rams coach Rich Brooks. “That’s the kind of thing we need, people to step up and make big plays like that.”

Rypien’s TD came late in the second period and cut the Seahawks’ lead to 20-10 in a game Seattle ultimately won by a 34-20 count.

“It was just a go route with our outside receivers and a middle-read route with our tight end,” Rypien said of the scoring toss to Isaac Bruce. “We probably should have done some things deep earlier with them because they played our underneath stuff pretty well. After we pushed them deep a little bit, things started opening up and we had a little more success.”

Rypien said Miller, who should be able to practice this week, was expected to sit down after just one more series of plays, anyway, so his playing time was not dramatically increased.

At least for now.

Because of a series of injuries, Miller has started only 18 games in the last three seasons. His concussion Saturday was the fourth in two years.

The vulnerability of Miller was what made the experienced Rypien - MVP of Super Bowl XXVI attractive to the Rams.

Rypien finished with four completions in 10 throws - generally under heavy pass rush - for 66 yards.

The Rams had very little idea what to expect from the Seahawks, considering it was the first game under Coach Dennis Erickson’s new staff.

“They gave us some different looks; we didn’t know what they would do against us,” Rypien said. “I was impressed, though, they looked real similar to the things Dallas runs and they looked pretty good doing it.”

Seahawks defensive tackle Sam Adams, who sacked Miller early in the game, also stripped the ball from Rypien for a fumble in the second period, which led to a Seattle field goal.

“I had a hard time getting a hold of the ball for some reason,” Rypien said. “A lot of the balls I threw, I didn’t have a good firm grip on them. One I threw to Troy (Drayton) was almost like a slider. So, it took a while to get going and feeling comfortable out there.”

The offense the Rams are running, though, is almost second nature for Rypien.

“We’re running the same things I did in Washington, but it’s going to take a little time for everybody to get on the same page,” he said. “It’s going to add a lot of dimension to what we can do. We’re going to change a lot of formations and give a lot of different looks - and preseason is a good time to get it ironed out.

“There was some sloppy play there, but we did have some guys make some big plays.”

Rypien, who lives in Post Falls, had to leave a brand new baby son when camp started, but he said wife Annette and their three children will start shopping for a St. Louis residence this week.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo