Rams Are Haunted by Vikings : Pro Football: In a repeat of a disheartening loss at Buffalo, L.A. blows the lead and loses in overtime, 23-21

The Rams swore they would never forget Buffalo, and the memories of a last-minute loss there on Oct. 16 that stuck to their insides like clumps of oatmeal, a taste so bitter it could not be duplicated, a feeling so strong it could not be tolerated.

The Rams wore the wounds of that loss, a gut-wrencher of ulcer-raising proportions, like lockets around their necks, hoping it would remain close to their hearts and serve warning to a game’s funny bounces and its sometimes humorless conclusions.

So when Ram tailback Greg Bell ducked into the Minnesota Vikings’ end zone on a one-yard scoring run with 28 seconds left--a thrilling, headstrong, fourth-quarter comeback and three-point victory all but secured--fullback Buford McGee could only think of teammate Flipper Anderson’s apparent game-winning reception against the Bills with 1:22 left, in a similar game that couldn’t be lost.

“When we scored, I kept saying ‘Remember the Buffalo game, Remember the Buffalo game,’ ” McGee said. “It came back and haunted us.”

So much so that Minnesota’s 23-21 overtime victory over the Rams at the Metrodome Sunday even smelled of the earlier loss. The Bills defeated the Rams, 23-20, when little known quarterback Frank Reich drove his team 64 yards on seven consecutive completions for the victory.

Three losses later, the Rams now have a pair of regretful bookends holding up what has become a four-game losing streak.

What can happen in 28 seconds? Have you got half-a-minute? Faster than you can get to refrigerator and back, the Vikings had done it to the Rams again, beginning at their 35-yard line, with no timeouts and a home unfaithful that was streaming toward the exits.

There was last-ditch hope in the so-called “Hail Mary” pass, a throw heaved into the air in no real direction. You hope for a lucky bounce or a miracle catch. The odds of success are slim, unless misfortune runs in the family, as it seems to be running with the Rams.

“Everyone has that play,” cornerback Jerry Gray said. “Why does it always seem to happen to us? Because we don’t play it right. If we play it right, we knock the ball down and win the ballgame.”

Sounds simple enough. But Viking receiver Hassan Jones almost made the catch twice, barely dropping quarterback Wade Wilson’s deep throw on first down.

On second down, the Rams again had Jones surrounded by five defenders, yet he somehow leaped above the crowd and pulled down the ball for a 43-yard reception to the Ram 22-yard line with 12 seconds left.

“It’s the old desperation play,” Jones explained later.

Yeah, but desperate for whom?

Rich Karlis rushed on the field and kicked a 40-yard field goal, his seventh of the game, tying a National Football League record. It was certainly another swift boot to the Rams’ backsides, and it sent the game into overtime.

There, the Rams would catch the first break by winning the toss, although their only possession would fizzle on three downs when Bell was stopped cold on third and one at the Ram 28.

In came punter Dale Hatcher, who could only hope to drive the Vikings deep into their own territory. He would never get the chance. Linebacker Mike Merriweather raced in untouched from the right side and smothered Hatcher’s punt cleanly at the Ram 12, the ball bounding into the end zone.

“When I took my last step, he was right over me,” Hatcher remembered. “But I didn’t see him coming. I was just thinking: ‘Get the ball down the field.’ I really thought we were going to win. It’s unfortunate this had to happen, a blocked kick of all things.”

Merriweather was so excited he couldn’t even cover the ball for a touchdown, eventually losing it through the end zone for a safety. In overtime, however, two points are as good as a million.

Hatcher guessed the Vikings would play it safe and set up a return. But when a guy doesn’t get blocked . . . ?

“There was a great surge from the line and I just happened to come up free,” said Merriweather, who was hoisted on his teammates’ shoulders afterward.

Merriweather didn’t any win any points for grace on the play, but this wasn’t ballet.

“I think when I rolled over (on the ball) I got nervous,” he said. “I don’t know. I just muffed it, missed it and messed it up.”

Sounds like the Rams’ theme song in recent weeks. Of course, Sunday marked just another in a long series of Ram-bashings by the Vikings, who have tortured the Rams for years in equally peculiar and painful fashions. Didn’t Bobby Bryant block a kick to beat the Rams in a playoff game once?

In time, the bashings sometimes blur.

But if this was just another game, with no serious consequence in the cosmos, how come grown men buried their heads in their own hands in the losing locker room?

Defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur, his eyes moist with emotion, couldn’t soon forgive the sins his defense committed in the final seconds of regulation, when Hassan Jones sprang from nowhere.

“He just jumped up and caught the . . . ball,” Shurmur said as he sprinkled in obscenities. “ . . . There were four guys around him. Just make the play on the ball, that’s what you’ve got to do. . . . I’ve been in this game 36 years so, believe me, somebody’s got to make a play on the ball.”

It was an unrewarding conclusion for his defense, which held the Vikings without a touchdown despite great field position all day and frequent raids into Ram territory.

Shurmur’s defense held every time, expect for the one that counted, much like in Buffalo, when the Bills undressed the Rams’ prevent defense in the final minute.

So where do the Rams head now? If Buffalo was the stomach punch, might Sunday’s loss be the roundhouse to the head? Can the Rams survive two crippling defeats in less than a month?

“They’re both painful,” Ram Coach John Robinson said, rating the defeats. “But we’ll get turned around and we’ll get our breaks. They turn for everybody that keeps playing. They don’t turn for ones that quit.”

For sure, his Rams didn’t quit Sunday, despite three-plus quarters of general lethargy compounded by numerous drive-killing penalties--11 in all for 101 yards, compared with only six for 45 yards for the Vikings--numbers the Rams considered too lop-sided in a fair game.

“I don’t know how it was so one-sided,” quarterback Jim Everett said. “Because, I know our guys don’t play that dirty.”

Trailing, 18-7, midway through the fourth quarter, the Rams picked themselves from the deck and made a game of it, driving 63 yards to the Vikings’ six before Everett hit receiver Henry Ellard on a six-yard scoring pass on fourth down with 7:20 left.

The Rams seemed destined to lose, however, when Viking safety Joey Browner intercepted an Everett pass at the Minnesota 10 with 2:21 left. Browner, remember, had sealed the Rams’ fate in last season’s wild-card game with two first-half interceptions that led to touchdowns.

But the Rams held the Vikings once more with 1:44 remaining, and seemed to find a hero in Cliff Hicks, who blocked Bucky Scribner’s punt deep in Viking territory. But as fate would have it, the ball bounced back into Scribner’s hands and he threw a left-handed pass to special teams tight end Brent Novoselsky for an apparent first down.

But several Vikings were guilty of leaving too soon before the punt, the penalty correctly called, but the Vikings were spared having to turn the ball back to the Rams inside their 10. Instead, they punted again, this time to their own 49 with 1:17 left. The Rams had no timeouts, but plenty of time, really.

Everett hit Ellard for 10 yards on first down and then for 34 yards to the Vikings’ one on the next, setting up Bell’s touchdown run four seconds later.

The Metrodome went limp, never even considering that recent Ram history might repeat itself.

“This stuff is just emotionally draining,” Everett said. “I think we all tried hard, there’s no problems on that end. . . . This is unbelievable, the whole thing. I’m sorry I’m at loss for words.”

Ram Notes

Safety Vince Newsome left the field in the first half with a pinched nerve in his neck, but the injury was not serious and not related to the herniated disk that kept him out of action for most of 1988. “It didn’t feel anything like the previous injury,” he said, “but there was reason for concern because it was in that area.”. . . Greg Bell had 50 yards rushing in five carries on the Rams’ first-quarter touchdown drive, but finished with only 73 yards. . . . Jim Everett had only 45 passing yards in the first half, but finished with 200 yards, completing 18 of 30 passes. . . . Herschel Walker had 76 yards rushing and 52 receiving.