Only Rams Stay Warm in East

What the New England Patriots should have tried is a fake field goal.

That would have worked. That would have been a great call.

Fortunately for the Rams, Patriot Coach Raymond Berry made a crummy call.

A pass. Imagine that, a pass. A pass from inside the five-yard line.

One second left in the game. One second left in the Patriots’ season.

Poor suckers never had a chance.

Rams win. Off they go to play in the playoffs.

Merry Christmas and Unhappy New England to all.

The Rams were a whole lot luckier Sunday than the Raiders, who lost to the New York Giants.

Oh, how the Raiders were hanging in there at halftime, tied at 17, still in the running for an all-California Super Bowl to equal the all-California World Series.

Wasn’t to be, though. Los Angeles lost--lost the game, lost the playoff berth, maybe even lost Los Angeles.

If the Raiders move, the city and county of Los Angeles isn’t even going to have a team anymore.

You hate to think about it. You get angry just thinking about it. You’re good fans! You deserve a team! You don’t live in Cleveland! You live in Los Angeles!

Oh, well.

The Rams also were luckier than the Green Bay Packers, who now hate the Patriots’ guts.

By losing Sunday, the Pats may have knocked the Pack right out of the playoffs. Think of the poor people of Green Bay. If the Minnesota Vikings beat the Cincinnati Bengals in the Metrodome tonight, the Packer faithful will have nothing to do for the next nine months except go ice fishing and wait for football.

What a poignant scene it was, watching the Packers huddled around a TV set, praying for the Patriots to score on that last-second play that would ensure Green Bay of at least a wild-card spot. When Hart Lee Dykes didn’t come down with that pass, the Packers knew there wasn’t anything left to do except . . . wait until tonight.

Making them all the more exasperated and disappointed, the Packers remember how close they came to beating the Rams at Anaheim earlier in the season.

There’s a game film you can bet they intend to burn.

Like the rest of us, the Packers undoubtedly figured the Rams had the playoff bid in the bag after Greg Bell’s touchdown run with 1:55 remaining, set up by Jim Everett’s pretty 53-yard bomb to Henry Ellard.

But only a fool thought the Rams had the game in hand.

The Patriots stormed right down the field. They did it with the ageless Steve Grogan at quarterback. Doug Flutie was off somewhere, shaving. Marc Wilson was unavailable, aiding New England’s chances immensely.

Grogan’s heroes marched all the way inside the five. Over the next nine seconds, they got off three passes, none of which worked.

Too bad, because the Rams definitely would have fallen for that fake field goal, particularly considering that the Patriots were behind by four points.

The poor old Raiders can only wish they had been so lucky as to finish their regular season against New England rather than New York.

They also can spend the winter regretting such things as: (a) not promoting Art Shell from Week 1; (b) blowing the Philadelphia game; (c) blowing the San Diego game; (d) not having Bo Jackson or Marcus Allen sooner; (e) not playing more home games in Oakland.

Some of these flaws can be corrected.

The Raiders have many decisions to make. The big one is where to play. Another one is whether or not they still need a quarterback.

Doug Williams, it has been reported, wouldn’t mind joining Al Davis’ team. Sure would be weird to end up with both Williams and Jay Schroeder, two years after Washington won the Super Bowl with both of them on the payroll.

It also cannot help but annoy the Raiders that Jim Lachey, the offensive lineman they traded to get Schroeder, did not permit a single sack this season, and was called for holding exactly once. The Raiders have certain people who get called for holding three times in one day.

We will leave the decision-making to Davis, as usual. The day he takes our advice will be the day he goes out in public wearing purple.

As for the Rams, we will leave the play-calling to John Robinson, who wants or needs nobody’s help.

From our vantage point, the Rams have as much chance of participating in Super Bowl XXIV as anyone. They might have to beat San Francisco at San Francisco, but it’s been done before.

The way we figure it, it’ll come down to the Rams and 49ers, fourth down, inside the Niner five, time for one more play.

Rams line up, ball is snapped . . . Well, you’ll see.