‘Meet Me in St. Louis’ Sounds Good to Rams : Injury-Riddled Cardinals Aren’t Likely to Provide Much of a Test in Opener

If you could hand-pick a team to open a season against, one that might play it like the Washington Generals do against the Globetrotters, you would take the St. Louis Cardinals in a minute.

So weren’t the Rams lucky ones this year, drawing the Cardinals today at 10 a.m. in their opener at Busch Stadium?

St. Louis, a Super Bowl contender in myth only, ended last season on a roll, losing 10 of its last 12 games. Keystone Kops of the NFC East, the Cardinals went belly-up after promising so much in 1984.

The best of the worst in 1985:

--St. Louis finished last in the NFL in pass defense, intercepting a league-low 13 passes.

--The Cardinals finished last in quarterback sacks (32) but first in allowing them (65).

--The NFL’s third-best passing team in 1984, the Cardinals fell to 18th in 1985.

Frankly, the Cardinals fell fast, hard and often, finishing at 5-11.

“A lot of our guys are quiet this year,” quarterback Neil Lomax said. “We were pretty much embarrassed.”

So what better place is there for the Rams to hide the leaks in their defense, make a test-run with a new offense and protect an old quarterback with a bad knee?

The Rams could be heard whistling, “Meet Me in St. Louis,” this week. The loudest warble seemed to be coming from running back Eric Dickerson, who rushed for 124 yards against the Cardinals in 1985 and 208 yards the previous season.

And though you wouldn’t normally bring this kind of thing up, Dickerson needs just 271 yards to pass Dick Bass and move into second place behind Lawrence McCutcheon (6,186) on the Rams’ all-time rushing list.

The Cardinals have changed head coaches (Gene Stallings for Jim Hanifan) and have a fresh new outlook on life, but the team is beset with some of the same old problems.

All-Pro receiver Roy Green, who was hardly a factor last season because of injuries, comes into this game with a bad shoulder.

Lomax, who was destined for brilliance two seasons ago before crumbling alongside his franchise a year ago, hobbles into this game with two bad ankles and an injured knee.

He’s listed as questionable, though both he and Green are expected to play.

“The knee feels good (but) the ankle is still a little gimpy,” Lomax said. “But I bet you I can still outrun Bartkowski.”

Steve Bartkowski, recipient of five knee operations in his 11-year career, makes his debut as the Ram quarterback today. He sat out last week’s exhibition with an abdominal muscle pull.

You can hear the joy in his voice when he speaks of the chance of playing behind a Ram line that features four Pro Bowl players.

Bartkowski, who was pounded in Atlanta, knows how it feels to be the underdog.

“I’ve been on the other end where a team would look at Atlanta and say, ‘Hey, there’s a win for us,’ ” Bartkowski said. “I know to be guarded from optimism. I know you just can’t show up, throw your hat in the ring and win.”

For all their troubles, the Cardinals genuinely seem affected by the presence of Stallings, a former Dallas Cowboys assistant who tutored under Tom Landry in Dallas and Bear Bryant at Alabama.

Stallings is a hard-line disciplinarian, who learned a thing or two from Bryant, so much that he served as technical adviser for training camp scenes in the movie, “The Bear,” the life story of Bryant.

Stallings played on Bryant’s 1954 Texas A&M; team and said he was cursed by several actors and extras in the movie who didn’t much appreciate Stallings’ authentic depiction of a Bear Bryant training camp.

“They’re much tougher, much more physical,” Ram Coach John Robinson said. “They’re trying to go out and beat teams physically. You can see it on film.” Has Stallings been that tough on the Cardinals?

“Nah,” he said. “We don’t overdo anything. But I feel like they responded.”

Ram Notes John Lee, the Cardinals’ rookie kicker, has missed four of his last five field-goal attempts. For most guys, that’s a slump. For Lee, the former All-American from UCLA, it’s a crisis. Lee made 85 of 100 field-goal attempts in college. . . . St Louis running back Ottis Anderson needs 239 yards to pass Larry Csonka (8,081) and move into 10th place on the NFL’s all-time rushing list. . . . Gene Stallings, on going from assistant to head coach in the NFL: “It’s a whole lot easier to make a suggestion than a decision.” . . . More on revolving-door quarterbacks. The Rams have had 15 different opening-day quarterbacks since 1946, but eight since 1975. Can you name them? If you said James Harris, Ron Jaworski, Joe Namath, Pat Haden, Bert Jones, Vince Ferragamo, Dieter Brock and Steve Bartkowski, you win. . . . Bartkowski and Neil Lomax of the Cardinals are close friends. “I’m happy for him,” Lomax said of Bartkowski’s chance with the Rams. “In my mind, he’s one of the best quarterbacks I’ve ever seen. Of course, I’m prejudiced.”