Rams Take a Step Back in Time in a Total Collapse : Pro football: Progress is replaced by regression when Vikings, led by Allen and Salisbury, are 31-17 winners.
The remodeled, revitalized 1992 Rams hit the wall hard Sunday, falling back to a familiar place at the bottom of a lopsided score.
Unlike their recent string of narrow failures, there were no bad breaks as the game wound down--no critical calls to explain away, no almosts, could haves or maybes.
There were only the Minnesota Vikings, with Sean Salisbury making his first NFL start at quarterback and wide receiver Cris Carter suffering a broken collarbone, who tossed the Rams aside like a bouncer in a bad mood.
The Rams (4-8), who have remained competitive through most of their previous seven defeats, whiled away the last minutes of Sunday’s 31-17 thrashing by the Vikings before 54,831 at Anaheim Stadium with substitutes, silence and blank stares.
“I hate to see anything like this happen,” Coach Chuck Knox said.
The Rams ended the game with Jim Everett on the bench from the end of the third quarter on; with the running game handed to a man who had carried only once for the Rams and with Minnesota being serenaded off the field by hundreds of local Viking fans.
It was, Knox agreed, a defeat comparable to the Rams’ 40-7 season opener against the Buffalo Bills. But that one was on the road and didn’t come 12 games into the season.
“I’d probably say that,” Knox said, when asked if this was the team’s worst performance since Week 1. “If I could say that, I wouldn’t be too far off.”
After a relatively tight first half, the Vikings (9-3) took an insurmountable 31-10 lead in the third quarter on touchdown runs by Terry Allen--who had two other scores earlier and finished with 198 total yards--and Keith Henderson.
Salisbury, a USC product, made one glaring mistake--throwing a second-quarter interception that could have sparked the Rams--but otherwise played efficiently, completing 23 of his 34 passes for 238 yards.
Although Everett was sacked only twice, he was cold-cocked at least twice more by unblocked Viking blitzers. He said he was so upset by the game he didn’t mind when Knox replaced him with veteran backup Mike Pagel.
“He knew I was pretty frustrated,” Everett said, “which was kind of obvious.”
The Rams, with tailback Cleveland Gary still struggling with an injured right ankle, rushed 10 times in the first half for 21 yards. Gary finished with eight carries for 13 yards and watched Anthony Thompson gobble up 51 garbage-time yards in the fourth quarter.
Also, the Vikings, the leading take-away artists in the league, intercepted one Everett pass, two Pagel passes and recovered two Ram fumbles.
“We put the hammer down in the second half, when we had to, and pulled away,” said Viking Coach Dennis Green, whose team is one victory from clinching the NFC Central title. “When you go on the road and win and it makes your record 9-3, you’ve got to be pleased with it.
“We’re not in the playoffs yet, but we’ve made a major step toward the playoffs.”
The Rams had been making steps all this year, playing tough teams tough on the road and actually knocking off the Dallas Cowboys two weeks ago. But last week, they lost by 17 points at home to San Francisco, and this week, collapse was total.
As has become routine, a tailback killed them. Last week, it was Ricky Watters and his 163 rushing yards. This week, Allen caught 10 passes for 110 yards, including a 36-yard touchdown pass from Henderson on a wide-open halfback pass in the second quarter.
Allen also ran 23 times for 88 yards against a Ram defense that will remain the league’s lowest-ranked against the run.
“I’m tired of hearing about how we’re a young defense,” said rookie defensive tackle Marc Boutte, whose partner, Sean Gilbert, didn’t return to the game after spraining his ankle in the first half.
“It’s time for us to come out and start playing like we’re an old defense. As far as I know, young defenses don’t win many games in the NFL.”
The Vikings took the game’s opening kickoff and, set up by Salisbury’s three completions for 58 yards, pushed across Allen’s one-yard touchdown nine plays later.
“I just knew him as a good running back, getting up field, getting hard yardage,” Ram safety Anthony Newman said of Allen. “But he was doing it all today.”
The Rams stayed in the game early on, answering with a nine-play touchdown drive of their own, culminating with Everett’s 17-yard touchdown pass to Flipper Anderson.
After the Henderson-to-Allen touchdown to make it 14-7, the Rams failed to convert a key opportunity to tie it up.
After Salisbury’s desperation pass was intercepted by linebacker Leon White, the Rams had the ball at midfield and quickly moved it to the Viking 14.
The drive failed when center Bern Brostek couldn’t get a solid grip on the ball because his thumb was taped. Brostek squirted the snap straight left, rather than up into Everett’s hands, and it was recovered by Viking linebacker Mike Merriweather.
“We just made too many mistakes against a good football team to give ourselves a chance to win it,” Knox said.
The Rams drew to within 14-10 on a Tony Zendejas 30-yard field goal, but they gave up a Viking field goal with one second left in the half when Salisbury completed six of seven passes to set up Fuad Reveiz’s 38-yarder.
The Vikings put it away in the third quarter, scoring with Allen’s 12-yard run on their first possession, then converting an Everett interception with Henderson’s eight-yard sweep, untouched into the end zone.
“When they got back into it, our defense went back out there and stuffed them,” said Viking linebacker Jack Del Rio, who had a sack and seven tackles, “and that was the end of it.”
Ram Notes
Sean Gilbert sprained his right ankle in the second quarter Sunday, did not return and is scheduled to be examined today. Robert Young saw most of the action in Gilbert’s spot after the injury. . . . Both starting middle linebacker Larry Kelm and backup cornerback Sammy Lilly suffered sprained knees and will also be examined today.
