He's big enough at 6'7" and 320 pounds to intimidate anyone he meets. But Orlando Pace goes the other way, threatening no one, living a life of restraint and control, a big man holding back. Watch him at a fancy St. Louis steakhouse, his sheer mass nearly filling a banquette designed for two, eating his 12-ounce filet and baked potato politely, quietly, even daintily. He refuses wine, balks at an appetizer, passes on dessert.

Then watch him on a football field. This cherub-faced Goliath shows another side when he enters what teammates call the O-Zone. "You can tell when he feels unstoppable," says Rams tight end Roland Williams, Pace's best friend on the team. "He gets excited and starts yelling, 'Run my way! Run it my way! I'm killin' him!'" It happened in a 34-21 victory over Carolina, when Marshall Faulk ran for 98 of his 118 yards over Pace's left side. It happened against New Orleans, when the Ram offense put up 28 second-half points in a 43-12 demolition of the Saints. In the fourth quarter alone, the Rams ran to Pace's side 14 times for 82 yards and 2 TDs.

"Times like that," says Williams, "I get very uncomfortable for whoever O's playing against."

Three years into his NFL career, Orlando Pace is becoming the player Dick Vermeil fell in love with on Saturday afternoons while doing college football color commentary for ABC. After three years of NFL experience, Pace's once-in-a-generation combination of giant size and nimble feet is now complemented by a great head for the game and a competitive streak that nobody noticed before. The result? An anchor tackle worthy of a Super Bowl winner.

If quarterback is the No.1 position in pro football, then left offensive tackle is 1-A, because he's the man who watches the (righty) QB's back. And this season Pace has protected Kurt Warner the way Microsoft guards market share. Says Rams personnel chief Charley Armey: "There's not a left tackle in the game today I'd take for Orlando."

You didn't hear that during Pace's first two NFL seasons. As Rams losses piled up like flapjacks at a Kiwanis breakfast, the local buzz was that the Pancake Man -- who flattened enough collegiate opponents to become the first offensive lineman to go No.1 in the draft in 30 years -- was more clod than cornerstone, more Tony Mandarich than Tony Boselli. Pace just smiled and worked to get better. "The criticism never bothered me, because I knew what type of player I was," Pace says. "But I couldn't take the losing. Honestly, I wanted out of here."

This fall, when success swept through St. Louis as suddenly and unexpectedly as an F-5 twister, Pace blended into the background. The frenzy of attention focused on Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk and Isaac Bruce; Pace was rarely mentioned. He was a piece of comfortable, functional furniture -- well-used but unappreciated. He never made any noise over that, either. "I don't mind it," Pace says. "Kurt's emergence is a great story, and Marshall and Isaac are so exciting, it's easy to overlook the offensive line. That's just part of being a lineman."

But this isn't just any lineman. "I've never coached a guy with the combination of talents he has," says Jim Hanifan, the Rams' offensive line coach, who tutored the legendary Cardinals line of the 1970s headed by Dan Dierdorf, as well as the Redskin "Hogs" of the early 1990s. "I told him once, 'If you don't get to Canton, the only reason is yourself.'" His performance so far suggests this is one instance where Pace isn't holding himself back. His other O-line coach, John Matsko, who coached the Jaguars' Boselli at USC for one season and helped develop perennial All-Pro William Roaf at New Orleans, calculates that Pace has made 87% of his blocks this season. "Considering he has to block the best pass rushers in the league every week," Matsko says, "that's unheard of."

But it's Warner who pays Pace the highest compliment a QB can bestow on one of the big guys up front: "You just never have to think about him. You know you're protected." That security allowed Warner, the one-time grocery store stocker, to embark on the greatest Cinderella voyage in NFL history, spraying the ball around the field to Bruce, Faulk, Williams, Az-zahir Hakim and Torry Holt en route to an MVP season.

Good as the Rams' skill players are, says Armey, Pace is at least their equal in athleticism. "As much as you see the receivers and backs doing with motion and formations, the linemen have to do something similar in this offense," he says. "They have a huge range of blocks to make -- reach blocks, slip blocks, fold blocks. Orlando can do them all -- and at a Pro Bowl level."

Okay, so Armey's biased. But Pace's peers voted him to the Pro Bowl for the first time this season. Once hectored by opponents for being the No.1 pick, he's now on everybody's short list for best lineman in the NFL. "He's come a long way," says Falcons DE Chuck Smith, the man Pace most hates to face. "When he was a rookie, I'd go out there with a bully mentality and rough him up. A lot of young guys wilt. Not him." Smith, one of football's most ruthless trash-talkers, then makes what for him is a startling admission: "I've whupped a lotta tail in my day, but Orlando did a helluva job against me this year."

And he did it with Smith pulling out the stops. "He got me the first game, so I said I'm gonna come back with a little something extra," Smith says. "I was tired of him takin' my damn lunch money. We were battlin' hard. He was getting me some, I was getting him some. So I said, 'All right, I'll talk a little mess.' But Orlando's not into talking. He won't let that get to him."

Smith turned to Plan B: "I tried to start a little fight to see if I could get him out of the game. But he wouldn't bite. I knew then my old tricks wouldn't work. He's all grown up."

Not without growing pains. More than a few times, the cornerstone felt like crawling under a rock, in part because of impossibly great expectations. One of Vermeil's first moves when he took over the Rams in 1997 was to trade a clutch of lower-round picks to the Jets for the right to pick Pace. But Pace held out for most of his rookie training camp. Then, in the Rams' fifth game, the 21-year-old was thrown into the fire as a starter.

It wasn't easy. "I was learning on the run," says Pace. "I had to catch up as I went along."

At Ohio State, where he won two Lombardi Awards, finished fourth in the Heisman voting as a junior and patented a statistical category -- the "pancake" -- for what he did to defenders, Pace dominated with his size and speed. But in the NFL, technique and guile matter in line play as much as brute physical ability -- sometimes more. Defensive ends carefully choreograph their moves, bullrushing straight at the OT one play, speed-rushing from the outside the next, then juking right and -- like Hakeem Olajuwon in the low post -- pivoting and spinning back to an open lane in the middle. Offensive tackles, like martial artists, have to have an answer for every attack.

"It's all leverage, getting under a guy, and using your hands and feet properly," says Pace. "A guy can bench 500 pounds, but a 200-pounder can beat him if he gets leverage." Early on, veterans like Smith and Chris Doleman would set up the young Pace with a straight-ahead charge in the first quarter, then beat him with a crossover "swim move" the next. But he could deal with that, because he was learning. He'd left Ohio State a year early in part because college ball was no longer a challenge. "It was getting to where guys across from me would come out there defeated," he says. "I'd handle them in the first quarter, and that would be it."

What Pace couldn't deal with in the NFL was the losing -- and the attitudes of many of his teammates. At Ohio State, Pace expected to win and usually did. In St. Louis, 4–12 and 5–11 in his first two seasons, too many players were working for a paycheck, and nothing more. "Guys would be laughing and joking after a loss," says Pace. "I couldn't believe that." Once, says Williams, Pace grew so disconsolate after a loss that he checked into a hotel to sit alone in the dark, leaving visiting family members at his suburban St. Louis home. "I hate to lose so much," he says. "It got so bad I just didn't want to talk to anybody."

Meanwhile, Vermeil's killer practice regimen -- full pads and nearly full contact, late into every week -- had some players on the verge of mutiny. And newly minted Rams fans groused about the meager return on the huge investment -- $46 million and a sweetheart stadium lease -- made to land the team. Pace says there were times last season when he didn't want to leave home.

But Vermeil and Armey continued to rebuild, unloading malcontents and replacing them with players like Faulk. Out went quarterback Tony Banks, who had no chance to fulfill his potential with the Rams. "Every time Tony made a mistake, the booing would start, and he'd go in the tank," Pace says. "He'd end up playing not to make a mistake, instead of doing what he could do."

In came Mike Martz, previously the Redskins QB coach, as offensive coordinator, along with Trent Green at QB and Adam Timmerman at guard. Each brought a refreshing jolt to a stagnant franchise. Martz's multiple formations, constant motion and quick-hitting, big-play mentality confused defenses and gave the Rams a chance to score from anywhere on the field. Green's positive outlook rubbed off on everybody in training camp and put a stamp on the team that lasted even after his devastating preseason knee injury. Timmerman, a free agent from Green Bay, gave the OL a vocal young pro with Super Bowl experience and a much-needed interior presence.

Vermeil, citing a more mature club, tapered down his practice demands during the regular season. "He's eased up a lot," Pace says, and the team has been fresher for it on Sundays. For his part, Pace began to assert himself as a leader. He showed up in the Rams' weight room for off-season workouts March 1, three weeks ahead of schedule. He and his buddy Williams pushed each other all spring and summer -- on the squat rack, running sprints, even at Pace's first love, hoops. ("We'd have three-point shootouts for three hours," says Williams.)

"The first thing I noticed were his work habits," says Matsko, who came to the Rams last winter from the Giants. "He's really worked to be at the top of his game for 16 games."

Everyone agrees Pace is not close to reaching his peak. "He's just scratched the surface," says Matsko. Hanifan and Timmerman marvel at his quick feet, which allow him to recover and make a block even when rushers get a step on him. "He's so smooth it looks like he's not working hard," says Hanifan. "But he is."

Armey marvels at Pace's athleticism: "He could just as easily be a Pro Bowl defensive end or tackle, maybe even a tight end." But Williams is the clear winner in the game of can-you-top-this claims about Pace. "If he put his mind to it, he could play in the NBA," he says. "I'm serious."

Right now, though, Pace's mind is set squarely on football, and on getting the Rams -- yes, the Rams -- to Atlanta, on board the O-Zone Express.

Sometimes Williams will holler down the line after a patented Pace pancake. "I'll be like, 'What's goin' down over there, O?'" Williams says. "And O will say, 'There's a party goin' on.'"

A party that just might rage right on through Super Bowl Sunday.

This article appears in the January 24, 2000 issue of ESPN The Magazine.