Parcells Needed to Keep It Simple : Analysis: Pass by Giants late in first half plays into Ram hands.

Flipper runs, Flipper leaps and Flipper scores. Now here’s the catch:

Sunday’s grand prize was an all-expenses-paid plane ride to San Francisco for 60 minutes of fun and frolic against the defending Super Bowl champion 49ers, who are so worried about the Repeater Jinx that they took the Minnesota Vikings’ league-leading defense this weekend, slapped it around for 41 points and left the field chewing on toothpicks.

“Look at San Francisco,” says John Robinson, Ram coach and travel guide. “They’re the team of the decade--and this might be the best team they’ve ever had, probably playing at their highest level of the season. They’re one of the best teams of all-time.

“We’ve been on the road a month, we’re exhausted. They’re rested, they looked great on Saturday. They’re almost unstoppable.”

Robinson pauses to let it all sink in, setting up the inevitable punchline.

“We’ve got ‘em right where we want ‘em.”

Robinson laughs at his own joke, but he is permitted. It beats crying. With a jet-lagged offense that barely outpointed the New York Giants in overtime and a tattered defense that lost two more defensive backs Sunday, the Rams, for their efforts, get to limp up the coast next week and face Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Roger Craig for the third time since October.

There ought to be a law, but the Rams, basking in the Meadowlands afterglow, are too giddy to lodge a complaint.

“This is what we’ve been looking for,” wide receiver Henry Ellard says. “This is been in the back of our minds ever since we lost to them on Monday night. We let them off the hook that game and we’ve been wanting another chance.

“We spent three weeks on the East Coast. We’ve been fighting, and finally, we got there.”

The prospect so excites cornerback LeRoy Irvin that the Ram rapmaster was reduced to semi-coherent babble as he tried explain his feelings without mangling too many metaphors.

“For once in my life, I’m starting to believe the critics,” Irvin says. “Not much, but a little bit. A lot of them had confidence in us and now we’re there, but we’re nowhere near out of the forest. I can’t even seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

“We’re like the little kid with the finger in the dike. Today, we put our little finger in the hole and waited and waited. Then, just as the dam is going to burst, here comes the cavalry to save the day.”

But, then, isn’t that how it is the with the Rams? Nobody knows how to explain it, to articulate it.

It just happens.

The Giants dominate the first half with a game plan that is the essence of inspired simplicity--Ottis Anderson up the middle--and seem set on running out the clock with a 6-0 halftime lead.

Then, suddenly, Coach Bill Parcells has quarterback Phil Simms throw downfield, into coverage. A ball is tipped, safety Michael Stewart intercepts and, with 17 seconds left, Jim Everett passes to Flipper Anderson in the end zone for a 7-6 lead.

One half later, the score is tied at 13-13 and the Rams, having frittered away two of their three timeouts, are trying to drive into field-goal range with 47 seconds remaining. This they do by calling a draw play, passing over the middle to the tight end, handing off to Buford McGee and sending Everett on a scramble that exhausts the clock when Everett decides to slide, rather than run for the sideline.

Pee-wee footballers, do not try this at home. Johnny Unitas never worked the final minute this way.

But are the Rams made to pay for their transgressions?

First, they win the coin toss for the overtime kickoff when tackle Jackie Slater--a heads man, always--makes the call.

Next, they get a 27-yard penalty when Giant cornerback Sheldon White tries to ride Anderson on a crossing pattern.

Finally, they go to Anderson again at the right goal-line pylon--an idea that resulted in an interception by Mark Collins early in the third quarter--and this time Anderson beats Collins for the ball and the game-ending touchdown.

Now, we know why Anderson keeps running, beyond the end line, up the tunnel, through the darkness and into the Rams’ inner sanctum. When you’re living the charmed life of the Rams, it pays to get out of town as soon as you can.

“Somebody,” Irvin says, “always comes to save the Rams at the last possible moment.”

And, now, they get San Francisco. The Rams beat the 49ers at Candlestick on a Tom Rathman fumble, lost to them at Anaheim on a Ron Brown fumble and can only wonder what’s going to happen once the ball stops bouncing.

“We split with them,” running back Greg Bell says. “We know we can play with them and we know how to play up there. We’re going to have to play the game of our lives.”

It may take that, and then some, but the way Ellard sees it, the Rams represent the NFL’s best, and last, hope of derailing the 49ers.

“I don’t know if they fear us, but they know we’re the best team they can face that can beat them,” Ellard says. “I think we proved that with that Monday night game, when we had them until John Taylor made a couple of big plays.

“We have the same type of weapons on offense. They have Taylor, Rice and Montana. We have Anderson, Ellard and Everett. Greg Bell, Roger Craig. We match up with them.”

At any rate, the Rams should benefit from the opportunity of playing again in their own time zone. After successive cross-country hauls to New England, Philadelphia and New Jersey, San Francisco will feel like home.

“By now, we’re used to hopping back on the plane and celebrating,” Everett says. “We knew going in that this was going to be our road in the playoffs.”

The final destination remains New Orleans, but that connection in San Francisco can be a killer.