It Takes Only Bono to Unravel Rams : Pro football: The 49ers’ third-string quarterback passes for 306 yards in San Francisco’s 33-10 victory.
The Rams’ season has plunged so far that their best efforts Monday night turned out to be nothing more than pro-Bono work.
Third-string quarterback Steve Bono, who threw for a career-high 306 yards on 18-of-33 passing, could not have been happier with the end result, a 33-10 San Francisco 49er victory before an Anaheim Stadium crowd of 61,881 and a national television audience not privy to the Rams’ seasonlong woes.
Those who did not switch it off were witness when the wheels came off.
The Rams had given dribs and drabs of this before, but Monday night was the total package, the unraveling, as low as the Rams have gone.
“We were simply overwhelmed by them,” Ram Coach John Robinson said. “I don’t know that there’s much else to say. We obviously are a team with some problems.”
Everything that could have occurred to illustrate the collapse of this once-proud team happened in the first half:
Thirty minutes of unhinged, unbelievable Ram football, 30 San Francisco points, 30 more steps down the ladder for a Ram team that cannot go much lower.
At halftime, the score was 30-3, a poignant reminder of the score by which the 49ers routed the Rams in the 1989 NFC championship game.
By the time the second half had mercifully come to a close, the 49ers (6-6) were back in the wild-card hunt and the Rams were a lock to finish last in the NFC West for the first time since 1982.
This game started off badly for the Rams, with Bono marching the 49ers for two first-quarter touchdowns, the first set up by a 41-yard pass play to tight end Brent Jones, the second one set up by a quick hitch pattern to receiver John Taylor that went for 78 yards.
And it ended worse for the home team, with defensive tackle Mike Charles picking up the referee’s flag after a facemask call on David Rocker and spiking it angrily at the referee’s feet, drawing expulsion from the game and a Bronx cheer from the crowd as he left.
“It’s depressing,” said tailback Marcus Dupree, who rushed 11 times for only 23 yards. “But it’s got to end sometime, it has to. Right?”
It doesn’t get better for the Rams, who are 3-9, owners of a six-game losing streak and opponents of the 11-1 Washington Redskins on Sunday.
The only drama left is whether Robinson can possibly survive it with his job intact.
Robinson brushed off a postgame question about his status in the wake of the debacle, but his record since that 1989 NFC title game is 8-20.
“There’s a lot of frustration, a lot of anger,” linebacker Kevin Greene said. “We came out motivated to play hard, and then the defense just fell into the same old rut we’ve done all year. Missed tackles, giving up big plays, it’s the same story all year long.”
The game was decided in the first quarter by missed tackles and big plays.
Taylor’s jaunt, which set up Tom Rathman’s one-yard touchdown run, was a sharp echo of Taylor’s two 90-yard-plus touchdown catch-and-runs during a Monday night game two years ago. Then, too, they broke the Rams’ backs.
Things got so much worse this time.
After Rathman scored the touchdown to put the team up 14-0, the 49ers kicked off to the Rams.
The ball flew deep into the back of the end zone, where Ram returner David Lang got set to down the ball for a touchback and promptly let it bang off his chest and trickle over the goalline.
At this point, his returning partner, Vernon Turner, had only one recourse: fall on it and take the ball on the one-yard line.
Instead, Turner scrambled to gather in the ball, rolled back into the end zone, tucked into a fetal position and assumed he had safely secured a touchback.
What he had secured was a safety for the surprised 49ers when Darrin Jordan touched Turner down in the end zone. That put the 49ers ahead, 16-0, and if embarrassment counted for anything on the scoreboard it would have been worse.
“I was trying to push him back,” Lang said.
Robinson said later that Turner thought he was still in the end zone, that by falling on it he was ensuring a touchback.
Two possessions later, Bono, playing because of Joe Montana’s elbow injury and Steve Young’s knee injury, continued to light up the Rams’ defense, and his two-yard lob to running back Harry Sydney pushed the score to 23-0.
On the next possession, Bono kept on firing, hitting on his sixth completion of 20 yards or more in the half, a 24-yard strike to Jones, that set up a three-yard scoring run by Dexter Carter and a 30-0 lead.
The Rams salvaged a 27-point first-half deficit when Robert Young blocked a long Mike Cofer field-goal attempt, and Tony Zendejas made a 37-yard field goal as the half ended.
In the half, the 49ers had outgained the Rams, 315-114, and averaged close to nine yards per offensive play.
The second half was just a network time-killer.
Was this the most embarrassing first half Robinson had ever experienced?
“I am at the point where ranking embarrassing first halves isn’t high on my agenda,” Robinson said.
Ram Notes
The Rams lost linebacker Roman Phifer and tight end Jim Price for the rest of the season, each with broken right ankles. Both are scheduled to undergo surgery today. . . . Marcus Dupree’s third-quarter one-yard touchdown run was the first score of his NFL career, and rookie cornerback Todd Lyght’s third-quarter interception of Steve Bono’s pass was Lyght’s first as a pro.
