Lawrence McCutcheon, a five-time Pro Bowl running back for the Los Angeles Rams who then put in more than 30 years working for the team off the field, died Friday at the age of 76.
The Rams released the news on behalf of his family. According to the family's statement, McCutcheon had been in "a long, courageous battle with Parkinson's disease." They described a man respected by teammates, opponents, coworkers and fans, and signed off by using his nickname, Clutch, saying he'd be remembered forever.
McCutcheon grew up in Plainview, Texas, born June 2, 1950, and played at Colorado State. The Rams took him in the 1972 draft. By the next season Chuck Knox was the head coach, and Knox liked to run the football, a lot. McCutcheon was his guy. The offense gave him the ball often, and he held the lead job for five full seasons.
He led the Rams in rushing in 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1977. He went to the Pro Bowl all five of those years, and in 1974 the Associated Press named him second-team All-Pro. Four seasons went over 1,000 yards. His best was 1,238 in 1977.
On December 4, 1976, the Rams beat the Falcons by running for seven touchdowns, an NFL record, and clinched a fourth straight NFC West title doing it. McCutcheon had 121 yards that day and scored three of the seven, all short, a 4-yarder and two from the 1. It was the most points the franchise had put up since 1950.
A year later, against the same Falcons, he passed Dick Bass for the Rams' career rushing record. He needed only 17 carries on December 11, 1977, and got 152 yards, taking his career total to 5,491 against Bass's 5,417. He also bumped his single-season club mark that afternoon, from the 1,168 he'd run for in 1976 to 1,206 with a game still to play.
He was the franchise's all-time leading rusher when he left in 1980. The final numbers: 6,186 yards on 1,425 carries over 89 games, all of it in a Rams uniform. Those Rams teams won the NFC West four years running by 1976.
Wendell Tyler had started taking carries by the 1979 season, and the Rams were a 9-7 team that wandered into the Super Bowl, having outscored opponents by only 323-309 over the regular season. Nobody had reached one with nine wins or fewer since the schedule went to 16 games. The opponent was Pittsburgh, at the Rose Bowl on January 20, 1980, and the Steelers were heavy favorites.
The Rams led 13-10 at the half. Terry Bradshaw hit Lynn Swann from 47 yards out early in the second half and Pittsburgh went up 17-13. Los Angeles drove 77 yards in four plays in response. On the last one, McCutcheon took a pitch, pulled up and threw to Ron Smith for 24 yards, and the Rams were back in front 19-17.
That was their last lead. Bradshaw, who threw three interceptions but also finished with 309 yards, was named MVP as the Steelers pulled away and won 31-19. It was their fourth title in six seasons. The crowd of 103,985 was a Super Bowl record, and the game was played in the Rams' own market, a first for the event.
The Rams traded McCutcheon to Denver in 1980, and he ended up finishing that season with the Seahawks. The Bills signed him in 1981 after a tryout, when he was 31. Their coach by then was Knox, who had left Los Angeles, so the two were together again for McCutcheon's last year in the league.
Football kept him around. McCutcheon joined the Rams' front office after playing and stayed, 32 years by the family's count. In May 2003 the team, then in St. Louis, named him director of player personnel. He held that title until 2016, when he retired, not long before the Rams moved back to Los Angeles. That made for roughly 13 years in the top personnel job, overseeing the team's scouting and roster-building side.
His son Daylon was a cornerback for the Cleveland Browns from 1999 through 2006. A grandson, Dyson, plays defensive back at Middle Tennessee.
