COMMENTARY : Ready or Not, Tease Returns for Faithful

Winless since Columbus Day, the Rams entered their latest crisis--a game against the 8-1 New York Giants--with their backs so thoroughly jammed against the wall, Coach John Robinson said, “We could feel the stucco.”

Sunday afternoon, the wall came crashing down. If it can happen in Berlin, it can happen in Anaheim.

Rams 31, Giants 10. Four-game losing streak beats four-game winning streak. Rotten Ram defense holds Ottis Anderson and troupe to six net yards rushing. Knuckleballer Jim Everett, whose recent throws earned him mention in the latest Sports Illustrated as the new Steve Sax, completes 18 consecutive passes and sets a club record.

The Rams are talking playoffs again.

You know, they do have a penalty in football for taunting.

The tease is back even if the Rams aren’t just yet, and at 6-4, after five consecutive victories and four losses in a row, they’ve given the Melonheads who hang out in the northern end-zone seats at Anaheim Stadium reason to get juiced again.

“Philadelphia lost,” Robinson proclaimed, which was truly hitting below the belt. Just a little aside, just to remind everyone that the Rams are even with their main competition in the NFC wild-card race.

“This certainly puts us back in the hunt again,” Robinson continued, prodding shamelessly ahead. “Aside from the obvious league leaders or the obvious division leaders, as far as the wild card goes, we’re in as good a position as any.”

In Anaheim, once more, there is reason to believe.

At least until next Sunday.

Since the end of September, the Rams have won three games--two of them coming against the winningest teams in the league, San Francisco and the Giants. They also came within a desperation pass and a blocked punt of beating the third power in the NFC, the Minnesota Vikings.

So, we know these Rams can play.

We also know they can play games.

Frank Reich? Jim Harbaugh? The New Orleans Saints?

Are they really taking this Super Bowl thing seriously?

“The last four weeks, we proved one thing,” said defensive tackle Doug Reed. “We proved we can lose a football game.”

Every way imaginable, too. No offense. No defense. No resiliency. No luck in the final 30 seconds.

“We had some hard losses,” said offensive tackle Irv Pankey. “The New Orleans game (a 40-21 defeat), that was just a butt-kicking. You can understand that.

“But the games you lose in the last seconds, the Buffalo and Minnesota games, that’s when you get frustrated. That’s when it gets hard to take.”

This time last week, the Rams were face down on the Metrodome floor. Seven days later, a 21-point triumph over the Giants?

“We had no where else to go,” Pankey explained with a shrug.

“We couldn’t do any worse,” Reed seconded. “If you lose enough games in a row, either you start thinking about going fishing or you get ticked. I think we were a little ticked.

“We’re not losers. We’re too good to say it’s over. At least that’s my thinking.”

So the Rams go out and put the heat on Phil Simms and the freeze on Lawrence Taylor and roll up a 24-3 lead by halftime and a 31-3 lead by the end of the third quarter.

That’s one way of preventing Mike Merriweather II.

Everett looked like Mount Everett again, which might have been the biggest surprise of the afternoon. It was certainly the most significant. Linked as he was with the losing streak--shaky quarterback, shaky team--Everett reeled off a different kind of streak against New York, and in the time it took him to complete 18 consecutive passes, the Rams’ lead went from 3-0 to 24-3.

By the time it was 31-10 and he had showered, Everett was even able to laugh about the literary allusion to Sax, the former Dodger second baseman who couldn’t throw straight.

“I don’t know,” Everett said with a grin, “I didn’t feel like I was throwing like Steve Sax. . . .

“Of course, the quarterback, along with the head coach, is always going to take the heat for (a losing) philosophy. He also gets the attention when things go right. It’s part of the job.”

Maybe it’s the Giants. These teams played last year at the Meadowlands, the Rams won in a walk (45-31) and Everett tied a club record with five touchdown passes.

If you ask Giant Coach Bill Parcells, the teams have to stop meeting like this.

“We must match up well with them,” Everett said, groping for an explanation. “Especially on the lines. The specialty guys, like me, take advantage of it and have a lot of fun.”

In the process, Everett and the Rams did a fair trashing of Parcells’ Arizona project. With road games on back-to-back Sundays against Phoenix and the Rams, Parcells decided to keep his team in the desert and practice all week under the Southwestern sun.

It worked for the A’s, didn’t it?

But the A’s had Rickey Henderson. The Giants had a date with an opponent that wins when it shouldn’t, loses when it shouldn’t and is setting NFL standards in playing to the level of the competition.

“We played the kind of football I think the Rams are capable of playing,” Robinson said. And that’s the problem with this team. They’re capable of anything. They’re the Sybil of the NFC West, and if the bodies in the Anaheim Stadium seats can stand it, the Rams are prepared to live with it.

Six more nervous breakdowns to go.