New Ram Forecast: Chance of Showers Greatly Decreased

Nobody has been emptying buckets of Gatorade on John Robinson this season. Nobody has given him the Bill Parcells shampoo--a new New York Giants’ ritual wherein, once a game has been more or less decided in the Giants’ favor, one of the team’s players creeps up from the blind side and dumps the contents of a refreshment cooler atop the coach’s head.

Somebody might have been considerate enough to give Robinson this treatment, had the Rams won the NFC West championship Friday night at Candlestick Park. Or, seeing as how the game took place in San Francisco, the coach at the very least might have gotten sloshed by a pail of Paul Masson. Since the Ram mission failed, though, Robinson was in no mood for any sort of humor, wet or dry.

He was not even in too great a shape going into the game. The day before, the coach’s chronic back problem had started acting up, making it a considerable effort just to get out of bed. It did not get so bad that he had to be listed as “questionable,” or “doubtful,” or any of that other NFL-injury mumbo jumbo, before the game against the 49ers kicked off, but just the same, Robinson’s back did not feel too hot.

By the end of the evening, his pain was a wee bit lower.

Robinson had spent the evening watching his football team fail to advance the ball, to the point that: “I got disgusted.”

He watched a division title and an extra week’s rest disappear. He watched his gifted but green quarterback throw 22 incompletions, his older and golder running back get restricted to 68 yards, and his total offense amass a dozen measly first downs in 60 minutes of football. And he watched his 1 1/2-length division leaders, with only two weeks left in the home stretch, get caught at the wire.

To the Niners went the game, 24-14, with the title as spoils. The dukes of Anaheim were left with poor-relation “wild-card” status and a coast-to-coast trip to cold Washington, as booby prize for the opening round of the NFC playoffs. Beating the Redskins in the nation’s capital would not be easy if the White House shipped the visiting team $100 million worth of arms. Or legs, even.

Welcome to Anaheim, Calif., heartbreak ridge.

On the telephone Saturday morning, Robinson was facing his situation bravely. From a morale standpoint, he said, he was not certain which of two ways the Rams would respond. “This sort of thing can make a team more determined, more committed, or it can discourage you,” Robinson said.

One thing was for sure, though. No matter how good their attitude might be, they would have to play a hell of a lot better to have any sort of shot at Pete Rozelle’s Pasadena Party. Mind over matter only goes so far, you know. Should the Rams show the Redskins the same effort that they showed the 49ers, by halftime they will be using RFK Stadium pay phones to make winter vacation reservations. Copies of their new music video--”Ram It!”--which was released just in time for Christmas, will be returned to California department stores, with instructions to the manufacturers to follow the title’s suggestion.

“The one thing that was most disturbing to me was that we were not the physically dominant team that we usually are,” Robinson said. The ram-tough Rams, who have been known to butt people all over the field, suddenly became the buttees. This was “my fault,” Robinson said, generously. It was not, of course. What was the coach supposed to use to motivate his players--cattle prods?

Where the Rams do need a little work is on offense. Their new toy, quarterback Jim Everett, is too new to be expected to out-pass Dan Marino or Joe Montana or, yes, even Jay Schroeder, this soon. Everett was supposed to relieve Eric Dickerson of some of the burden, not all of it.

The funny thing--or sad thing, depending on your point of view--is that the worst thing that has happened to the Rams all season was not the late arrival of their starting quarterback, or the late arrival of wide receiver Henry Ellard, or anything at all involving individual personnel, but, very possibly, the unlucky flip of a coin.

Had the Rams won a coin toss before the overtime period of last Sunday’s home game against Miami, they might have marched down that field on their first possession and won the game, just as the Dolphins ended up doing that day. The way Everett was throwing, the Rams could have clinched their division on the spot.

Instead, they have become an exasperated pack of wild cards, confronted with the very definite possibility of ending a once-delightful season with three straight defeats. Compliments would quickly turn into complaints. Robinson and the Rams this winter would have to take a bunch of crud.

The coach would hate to see that.

Hey, if a guy is going to get dumped on, at least let it be something wet.