Rams Have the Last Word, 21-7 : NFC playoffs: L.A. offense scores on first two possessions and all-zone defense shuts down Cunningham and Eagles.

No one ever said Buddy Ryan’s team couldn’t talk. Like coach, like team. The Philadelphia Eagles passed out opinions last week like business cards.

Zone defense? If the Rams were sissies enough to try it, fine--it’s their reputations on the line down at the rifle club.

The Eagles’ defensive line? Couldn’t be stopped. They’d swat the Rams from their path like moths from a doorstep. Super Bowl, here we come.

Travel plans? If needed, the Eagles would be sunning in Santa Rosa this week in preparation for next week’s divisional playoff game against San Francisco.

“They can go ahead and plan that flight to Frisco,” Ram quarterback Jim Everett said, “but they ain’t going.”

Not representing the league, anyway. The Rams ruined some great pregame material for round two with a 21-7 wild-card victory over the Eagles at Veterans Stadium on Sunday, earning a spot in next week’s divisional game against the New York Giants in the Meadowlands.

Not much to talk about, really. The Rams scored two touchdowns in the first eight minutes, could have scored two more in the next eight but didn’t, then held on in typical hair-raising fashion, needing two Greg Bell bursts in the final five minutes to clinch it.

Over Ryan’s protestations about the sins of zone defense, the Rams proceeded with their coverage of Eagle quarterback Randall Cunningham. He was to them a blip on their radar screen, never to be lost from tracking.

Unsporting as it seemed, the Rams played not a single down of man-to-man defense against the Eagles. Theirs was more a quarantine approach of patience and containment, and it worked well enough to hold Cunningham to 39 rushing yards and no touchdowns.

Ryan said last week that any quarterback worth his salt could undress a zone. Sunday, he could only tip his cap to Ram defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur, who had caged Cunningham with nets, not bullets.

On this subject, you might say Shurmur and Ryan, another defensive strategist, have differing opinions.

“I disagree like hell with it,” Shurmur said of Ryan’s attack philosophy. “Physical is not described in terms of man-to-man or pass rush. Our guys are as tough as any group I’ve been around. These guys have been criticized, chastised; people have said what’s a defense that’s 21st in the league doing in the playoffs, all of those things. I think this was a great opportunity for them to show the world that, hey, we can play this game however you want to play it.”

On the flip side of scrimmage, the Rams’ offensive line kept the heat off Everett. The Eagles’ sack team of Reggie White and Jerome Brown bagged Everett one time each, but it wasn’t the menacing rush of doom that had been predicted.

Tackle Jackie Slater said the line has never been better prepared, and worked in uncommon unison to pick up stunts and blitzes.

The line held the Eagles in check--without holding any Eagles. The lone Ram penalty in the game, in fact, was a self-induced delay call to proffer a better end-zone angle for punter Dale Hatcher.

Ram Coach John Robinson considered his line’s work commendable, given the task at hand.

“Their line is very famous,” he said mockingly of the Eagles’ front four. “But they clearly had their hands full with our offensive line. You might call it a standoff.”

You might call it that; Robinson wasn’t.

“You get to vote,” he said. “But I thought we won. They said they were going to win the battle. I don’t think they did.”

The Eagles’ arrogance, born of their coach, rubbed many Rams the wrong way. Even the team’s most guarded diplomat, Everett, admitted he took some of last week’s Eagle chatter into the huddle.

Greg Bell said he was taunted throughout the game by Eagles’ safety Andre Waters, who jarred the ball from Bell’s arms on a first-down carry at the Eagles’ five in the first quarter, a crucial fumble considering the Rams could have moved ahead, 21-0, with a touchdown.

“He just talked the whole game,” Bell said of Waters. “It got to be kind of funny. He kept saying ‘Four-two (Bell’s number), I’m going to get you.’ And he got me.”

Bell redeemed himself later, with the Rams clinging to a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter. Pinned at their own 16 with 5:44 left, the Rams craved a possession drive to work time off the clock. They kept the drive alive on third and four at their 21 on a 15-yard pass from Everett to Buford McGee. On second down from the 36, Bell took a handoff and broke the play outside.

Bell: “Sometimes they spend too much time thinking about what to say, and they don’t think about what their assignments are.”

Bell broke free down the left sideline and ran 54 yards before being dragged down by Izel Jenkins at the 10.

“I don’t think I was flying down the field as fast as Bo Jackson would,” Bell said, “but I was getting down the field. I knew he was back there, because I’d seen him when I took off. He wasted a lot of time trying to strip me (of the ball), rather than trip me up.”

Jenkins did strip the ball, but Bell was able grab the ball with his other hand before going down.

Bell ran three yards on first down and then scored the game-clincher from seven yards out with 2:14 left, putting the Rams up, 21-7.

He couldn’t top last week’s 210-yard performance against New England, but this wasn’t the Patriots’ defense, either. Bell finished with 124 yards in 27 carries, which was plenty good enough for Robinson.

“Greg Bell had an outstanding game,” Robinson said. “That was a slippery, wet, treacherous set of circumstances.”

Bell said the Eagles, a gambling defense by nature, gambled one time too many on his long run. He said it was only a matter of time before a big play popped.

“I knew our line was more dominant than theirs because they were trying so many stunts,” he said. “If a team stunts a lot, it tells you one thing: they can’t beat you straight, so they’ve got to try and finesse their way. And they weren’t capable of doing it.”

So, Ram fans live to suffer another day. The Rams dominated the Eagles throughout, but still needed a fourth-quarter surge to protect the win.

Robinson was almost indignant when asked how such a thing could happen.

“This is the way this team has played all year,” he said. “We screw up. That’s us.”

It took the Rams five plays to score on their first possession, Everett throwing a wobbly, underthrown pass to receiver Henry Ellard, who was rewarded for jumping higher than safety Jenkins by pulling down the reception at about the 20 and strolling in for a 39-yard touchdown pass play.

After a 30-yard Eagles’ punt on their first possession, the Rams marched 46 yards in seven plays for another touchdown, the score coming on a four-yard pass from Everett to Damone Johnson.

The Rams might have been cruising at halftime if not for Bell’s fumble inside the five; a 47-yard field goal attempt by Mike Lansford that went awry, and an Everett interception late in the half after the Rams had earned first-and-10 at the Eagles’ 25.

The unenlightened might see the squandering of such opportunities as wasteful, or nerve-wracking.

“We have character,” tackle Irv Pankey said. “We don’t put up a facade of character, you see what I’m saying? We’ve got character.”

With Sunday’s win, the Rams also have a chance, and a funny feeling.

“It’s growing on us,” Everett said. “It’s like the Rams can get there.”

And the Eagles can’t.

Ram Notes

In the quarterback battle, Jim Everett completed 18 of 33 passes for 281 yards and two touchdowns; Randall Cunningham was 24 of 40 for 238 yards with no touchdowns and one interception. . . . Ram quarterback coach Dick Coury said he has had preliminary conversations about coaching vacancies with the Phoenix Cardinals and New York Jets. Coury said new Jet General Manager Dick Steinberg called him, but no formal interviews have been scheduled. . . . Ram defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur is expected to be among those considered for the Cardinals’ job. . . . Both sacks of Cunningham were made by linebacker Kevin Greene. . . . Add Cunningham: His only punt of the game traveled just 20 yards. . . . The Eagles’ lone touchdown game on a one-yard run by Anthony Toney in the fourth quarter, capping an 11-play, 80-yard drive. . . . The Rams held the Eagles to just 95 yards net rushing.