It’s Official: Rams Are 24-19 Losers in N.J.

It was the officials who threw the flags Sunday, but it was the Rams who paid the penalty.

After building a 13-0 lead in the first half and apparently headed for their ninth victory of the season, the Rams fell apart in the second half and were beaten, 24-19, by the Giants in front of 74,633 at Giants Stadium.

The Rams, now 8-2, were as much a victim of their own errors as they were of some curious calls by the officials.

Overall, the Rams were penalized 10 times for 99 yards, the Giants only twice for 15 yards, and the Giants gained 5 of their 21 first downs on penalties.

It all added up to a frustrating afternoon for Ram Coach John Robinson, who took quite a while to cool off from what was perhaps the wildest sideline tirade of his career.

A pass interference call against LeRoy Irvin got Robinson started, but it took a disallowed touchdown pass from Jeff Kemp to Bobby Duckworth to really get him going.

The Rams already had fallen behind, 17-16 in the third quarter, when the first incident occurred, but they were by no means beaten.

Then, field judge Jim Stanley flagged Irvin for his first pass interference penalty of the season--only the third against the Rams in the 10 games--and jumped the Giants 39 yards to the Rams’ four-yard line, instead of leaving them third-and-23 at the Rams’ 43.

Stanley ruled that Irvin interfered with wide receiver Bobby Johnson, although Irvin had the better chance to catch the pass because the ball was under thrown--and, Irvin looked back for the ball, thus appearing to comply with the new interpretation of the rule.

Two plays later, little Joe Morris banged over from a yard away and schoolteacher Eric Schubert kicked the extra point to increase the Giants’ lead to 24-16.

Two minutes later, Kemp, sitting third and seven at the Giants’ eight-yard line after an 89-yard kickoff return by Ron Brown, fired a line drive to Duckworth in the deep left side of the end zone. Back judge Tom Kelleher ruled that Duckworth got only one foot down before tumbling out of bounds.

Robinson raced down the sideline and vehemently let Kelleher know that Duckworth would have had both feet in-bounds if Giant strong safety Kenny Hill hadn’t knocked him out of bounds.

“He (Hill) drilled him (Duckworth),” Robinson repeated later. “I was looking right down the sideline. There’s no question he had one foot down and no question he would have got the other foot down if the man hadn’t tackled him.”

Robinson expects the usual satisfaction from the league office after a review of the films this week.

“The league’ll look at it and say, ‘Well, you were right,’ and you go on from there,” he said. “That’s a part of this game.”

Duckworth, in pain from a bruised left collarbone that knocked him out of the game, had very little to say about the play.

“I don’t know, man,” was all he’d say.

Actually, the less said by the Rams, the better.

They were outgained and, in the clutch, outplayed by a team that is, like themselves, coming of age in the NFL. The victory left the Giants (7-3) tied with the Dallas Cowboys atop the NFC East.

Meanwhile, the Rams’ lead over San Francisco (5-4) in the NFC West slipped to 2 1/2 games. The 49ers’ play at Denver tonight.

As expected, it was a struggle between two strong defenses. Owens and linebacker Mike Wilcher sacked Giant quarterback Phil Simms, and the Rams, who lead the league in takeaways with 36, took it away from the Giants three times--on interceptions by Irvin and safety Johnnie Johnson and a fumble recovery.

The latter occurred on the Giants’ first play when Simms passed into the flat to Lionel Manuel, who was frisked by cornerback Gary Green, with linebacker Mel Owens recovering at the Giant six. Eric Dickerson cracked for three, two and the final yard for a 7-0 lead.

But four other times, including the Duckworth call, when the Rams reached the Giants’ 14, 23, 9 and 8, they were unable to budge the NFL’s top-ranked defense and went away increasingly dissatisfied with field goals by Mike Lansford from 31, 40, 26 and 25 yards.

Lansford’s only miss in his last dozen attempts has been from 51 yards.

“We’ve got to get points,” Lansford said. “It’s a little frustrating on behalf of the offense, but if we have to kick field goals, I’m gonna do it. It just doesn’t count as much team-wise.”

Kemp, making his first appearance of the season in place of the ailing Dieter Brock, got an OK sign from Robinson in the dressing room afterward, but his numbers were unimpressive: 10 for 25 for 130 yards and 1 interception on a pass juggled away to Hill by rookie Michael Young.

Robinson said Brock, who had surgery to remove a kidney stone a week ago, would be examined today to determine when he might return. The Rams play at Atlanta next Sunday.

Their final hope died Sunday after tight end Tony Hunter dropped a wide-open sideline pass at the Giants’ 35 that would have been Kemp’s longest completion of the day.

“I just screwed up,” Hunter said. “A lack of concentration.”

Kemp: “I try not to let dropped balls and penalties affect me because I make mistakes, too. I had a touchdown to Mike Young (in the second quarter). I read the coverage and was hoping he’d turn inside (in the end zone).”

Instead, Young turned outside and the ball sailed into no-man’s land.

“Mike was running the route the way it was designed,” Kemp said. “I was doing something we hadn’t talked about.”

Dickerson rushed 24 times for 101 yards, but his longest gain was 12 yards. Backup Barry Redden broke the longest run of his four-year career when he went 41 yards on a third-and-7 draw from his own 14-yard line in the second quarter--another threat that fizzled to a field goal.

Said Dickerson: “They (the Giants) played tough on the goal line, and sometimes we didn’t make the right calls and guys weren’t lined up right.”

Casey Merrill, a Giant defensive lineman, said Dickerson seemed to be running as strong as usual “only in spurts. But he also didn’t seem to have some of the holes he had last year.”

Kemp was sacked three times, once each by Perry Williams, Bryant Hunt and league leader Leonard Marshall, who now has 12, but the Giants were more intent on stopping Dickerson.

“This is as close as we’ll come to concentrating on one player,” Marshall said.

Simms (16 for 30 for 239 yards) deserves credit for resiliency. Giant Coach Bill Parcells was inclined to run out the clock with a 13-0 deficit near the end of the first half, but Simms talked him out of it and took the Giants on an 80-yard drive to score on his scramble pass to wide receiver Bobby Johnson with 16 seconds remaining, cutting the Rams’ lead to 13-7.

Marshall called it “the turning point.”

The Rams can only blame themselves for keeping that drive alive after stopping Tony Galbreath on a third-and-four play at the Giants’ 26. Nose tackle Charles DeJurnett was penalized for touching Galbreath’s face mask, giving the Giants a first down.

DeJurnett said it was a good call.

Parcells told his players: “Gentlemen, we beat a real good football team. We’re still able to come up with a big play.”

Ram defensive end Gary Jeter, who played six years with the Giants, said: “This is a well-balanced team. We never had much offense when I was here.”

In the third quarter Simms threw over the middle to Galbreath, a 10-year veteran who faked safety Nolan Cromwell into a 49-yard gain leading to a 40-yard field goal by Schubert, their part-time kicker who is 6 for 6 in the last two weeks.

Two more big plays by Simms--26 yards to Manuel and 14 to tight end Mark Bavaro--launched a 59-yard push to Morris’ second touchdown from three yards out to put the Giants in front, 17-16, late in the third quarter.