Stand-In Rams Strike Out, 37-10 : L.A. Undermanned, Unprepared in Loss at New Orleans

When did it all start to slip away from the Also-Rams, de-horned Sunday, 37-10, by the New Orleans Saints in front of 29,745 at the Superdome?

Was it in not throwing a get-acquainted party for non-union guys and strike-crossing veterans?

“I didn’t know the names of some of our guys,” said Ram linebacker Jim Collins, who rejoined the team Friday. “It was real different, hard to describe.”

OK, how about meeting some of the boys now. Jim Collins, meet Neil Hope, your dancing partner at linebacker. He’s “Hey you, fill the hole!”; the guy you were screaming at for 60 minutes.

Or, are Ram scouting department optimists to blame for pigeon-holing their NFL strike contingency plans, never thinking it would come to this, only to be left frantically combing the area for players with high school experience?

Or, was the error in not sending for those Arena Football League clips on quarterback John Fourcade, most recently of the Denver Dynamites, who Fran Tarkenton-ed the Rams to their football death with his running (39 yards, 6 carries) and passing (16 for 21, 222 yards, 3 touchdowns)?

John Fourcade?

Ram kicker Mike Lansford, after a street fight with his conscious (he canceled three plane flights), crossed the picket line and flew into town Saturday.

Sunday, he felt as if he never landed.

“You know when you have dreams like when you go to school in your underwear, dreams about things just not going right?” he said. “That’s how it was out there. I saw unfamiliar faces, confused faces, 30,000 people in the stands, players with no experience.”

But this was no dream. Far from it. In fact, reality has the Rams at 0-3 for the season with a replacement football team that would have a tough time against the Beastie Boys.

And coming up next, strike permitting, are the Pittsburgh Steelers at Anaheim Stadium. Will it be 0-4 and the Lost Season of 1987?

“No,” running back Mike Guman said. “It’s not over by any means. But we’ve got to get back to playing football. This is ridiculous. We’ve got to get our guys in here and play. This isn’t good for the NFL. I’m not saying it was a bad idea, to try to put these games on anyway, but enough is enough. Let’s play football.”

Of course, strike sentiment was somewhat different at the Superdome, where fans taunted striking players outside before the game and inside worked up a chorus of “Stay On Strike” after the Saints moved out to a 27-0 halftime lead.

Hey, this is the Saints’ best start (2-1) since 1983. Who needs collective bargaining? New Orleans has Fourcade and tackle Ken Kaplan and receiver Stacey Dawsey and tight end Mike Waters, one non-unioner who was good enough to take a short pass from Fourcade and turn it into a team record (remember, all records count) 82 yard-touchdown pass play in the fourth quarter. On the play he beat none other than a real Ram, safety Nolan Cromwell.

The Saints, unlike another team, seemed prepared for this strike disaster, storing up players the way you would dried fruit in a shelter.

Knowing there wouldn’t be much time to organize, New Orleans turned to a quarterback who still considers a pocket something you use for spare change.

At age 27, Fourcade has played in almost every organized football league known to man (NFL, CFL, USFL, Arena).

And, as the score suggests, he seems the perfect non-union passer, a street player with a “buttonhook-at-the-lampost” mentality.

“For this type of the game he was the ideal quarterback,” Collins said. “He would just run around and make things happen.”

There was the first quarter, for instance, when Fourcade drove his team 72 yards in 17 wild plays for a touchdown, the score coming on a one-yard pass to tight end Ken O’Neal. Along the way there were roll outs, jump passes (Look Ma, it’s Sammy Baugh!), quick screens and wacky runs.

Fourcade’s 11-yard scramble from the Ram 12 set up the touchdown and made a journeyman quarterback a local hero.

“This is the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life,” he said afterward. “I never got touched the whole game except once and that was my fault. It was a golden opportunity and I took advantage of it. I don’t know if I was out there to prove anything, I was just out there to have fun. I hope they see this game and say that John Fourcade can play in the NFL. I hope this is a light that shines for me.”

The Rams never knew what hit them. After the Saints’ first touchdown, the Rams worked themselves into punt formation, a recurring theme. And though they had with them their first-string punter, Dale Hatcher, the team kind of forgot about blocking for him.

New Orlean cornerback Reggie Sutton would race untouched on his way to Hatcher’s foot, blocking the kick and returning it 13 yards for a touchdown to put the Saints ahead, 13-0, early in the second quarter.

If the Saints were organized, then the Rams were the Keystone Kops.

“It’s difficult because the teams took a different approach to it,” Guman said. “The Rams were more optimistic and they were hoping that the strike would be settled and we (the regulars) would all be playing this week. They didn’t really go out and sign guys and get a unit together. The Saints, I don’t know what they did, but they were executing pretty well.”

At least better than the Rams, who had signed only two offensive lineman 10 days ago.

You could almost smell a center-snap fumble between quarterback Steve Dils and center Navy Tuiasosopo coming.

And it did, in the second quarter, with the Saints’ Michael Adams recovering at the Ram 29. It led to an 11-yard scoring pass from Fourcade to Eric Martin with 1:50 left in the half. It made the score 20-0. It made the Rams sick.

There would be no Ram comebacks, not with an offensive line that would have trouble trap-blocking a potted plant and receivers with hands of Gumby.

“We were concerned about the talent we had at wide receiver,” Rams Coach John Robinson said. “We weren’t on the same page in that area.”

The Rams weren’t in the same book.

Robinson second-guessed himself about using Dils, who only reported last Thursday, instead of Bernard Quarles, a better athlete and scrambler.

“We might have been better off going with the group that practiced together the longest,” Robinson said.

But such hindsight was moot.

All Robinson could do was watch the horror show.

The only Ram touchdown was a pure non-union production, a 40-yard scoring pass from Quarles to Stacey Mobley with 5:16 left.

The Ram offense, facing a Saint defensive line that included two regular starters, Bruce Clark and Tony Elliott, could muster all of 72 yards rushing, 37 of those from Jon Francis in the fourth quarter when no one was looking.

Saint fans didn’t seem to mind that this game was a B movie. Remember, they’ve had 1-15 seasons here.

But the last play of the first half rekindled memories of a Cal-Stanford kickoff. This time it was Ram corner Greg Williamson intercepting a Fourcade pass and lateraling to Shawn Miller, who fumbled the ball forward to Fourcade, who ran about 70 yards for an apparent touchdown only to have the whole thing called back because an official ruled that Miller intentionally lateraled the ball forward. It didn’t look that way on second look.

“Where was instant replay when we needed it?” Fourcade jokingly said.

There were crazy drives and crazy hits and crazy bounces.

It was crazy.

“Obviously,” you’re not seeing the same caliber of football,” Ram defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur said. “The other 1,400 players out there are the best available. This is the next group.”

Said defensive end Shawn Miller: “I was embarrassed. The L.A. Rams are a better team than that. I mean the (real) L.A. Rams.”

For now, though, these are the real Rams. As real as it is to be 0-3 and headed for 0-4.

Can it really be true?

“I felt strange, at Friday’s practice and on the plane ride here,” said Miller, a four-year veteran. “It reminded of my first day in pro camp. It seemed like a bunch of rookies just trying to make a club.”

Welcome to the club.

Ram Notes

Defensive end Shawn Miller of the Rams said he had heard that the Raiders have taken a vote and decided to walk back into camp as a team today. “If you get that, I’ll bet you’ll have 70% of the teams coming in,” Miller said. “All you need are a few key individuals on every team. Once they come in, you’ll see everyone else follow.”