Former Hares Adopt the Role of Tortoises

As hard as it is to imagine a sweltering September game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers being crucial to anything , here stand the Rams, teetering on the brink of an early season precipice.

And they do not like the looks of what they see below them. Oh and two, isn’t that what the Falcons are supposed to be?

“It feels funny losing your opening game,” receiver Flipper Anderson said. “First two years I was here, we were 4-0, 5-0 . . . and then we hit those slumps.

“It kind of feels like our backs are against the wall already. But I think we kind of play better when our backs are against the wall.

“I think we’re a better team under pressure. And this week we’ll find out.”

Totally unaccustomed to seeing some digit other than 0 in their games-lost column so early in the season, and worried that 0-2 is not precisely how you start going about winning a Super Bowl, the 0-1 Rams are clearing their throats and presuming that today’s game here is your basic must-win venture.

They went 4-0 in 1988 and ended up 10-6, losing in the playoffs after suffering a mid-season swoon. They bolted off to a 5-0 record last season but ended up 11-5 after an October slump.

After last week’s loss in Green Bay, the Rams don’t want to continue 1990 clawing for life in a division that could turn out to be the toughest it has been in years.

So forget the worries about the offense being out of sync, or about the defense still trying to get all the pieces in place. The Rams are talking flat-out survival now. Synchronization can come later.

“I think we need the win,” Anderson said. “It’s going to be hard to win this conference, starting off 0-2, with San Francisco playing the way they are, New Orleans and Atlanta being strong this year, too.

“Last year, ‘Frisco only had two losses the whole season. So 0-2 could be a major, major disappointment for us.”

Being under pressure is not something the Rams are used to in September. But already, visions of the 49ers running away and hiding before the Rams even get a shot at them are dancing around Rams Park.

Hey, this early section of the schedule was supposed to be the easy part, they tell themselves. What happens when things get tough?

“We’ve got to win,” linebacker Mike Wilcher said. “There’s no two ways about it. We’re 0-1, we’re behind in our division, so it’s a matter of winning now. That’s all we’ve got to concentrate on.

“They’re all must-wins, but right now, after losing the first game, we have to come out and really establish what we’re going to be.

“How are we going to play? We’ve got to win early to be in position late to do things.”

Said quarterback Jim Everett: “We’re all eager for a win--very eager. We have yet to win a game, so we’re going to press a little bit.”

Unfortunately for the Rams, the Buccaneers, after stumbling to a 5-11 record last year, have added some new bodies and are coming off a sharp 38-21 victory over the Detroit Lions in Detroit.

The biggest difference so far has been running back Gary Anderson, who sat out all of 1989 in a contract dispute with the Chargers and was acquired by the Buccaneers during the off-season.

Perhaps making up for lost time, Anderson was Tampa’s leading rusher with 74 yards and leading receiver with six catches for 79 yards against Detroit.

“He’s the guy that they obviously have designed their offense around,” defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur said. “He touched the ball 27 times last week--21 runs and six passes. You take that, and an average game is about 60 (offensive) plays ballgame, so here’s a guy who handles the ball half the time.”

Wherever Anderson lines up, the Ram defense will have to stop and take note.

“When they line up in formation, we’re just going to have to realize where he is and understand that they try to get the ball to him as much as they can,” Wilcher said. “Downfield, swings, they just try to get the ball in his hands and let him create.

“He makes the whole team look better.”

And then there is the guy the Rams’ defense, against which second-year Packer quarterback Anthony Dilweg passed for 248 yards, knows can beat them single-handedly--Vinny Testaverde.

With Anderson now taking up most of the defenses’ time and game-plan strategy, Testaverde is playing as if the responsibility of saving the franchise finally is off his back.

Testaverde, who has thrown 57 interceptions compared to only 33 touchdowns the last two seasons, completed 16 of 21 last week for 237 yards and three touchdowns with only one interception. His quarterback rating of 132.3 is by far the best in the league.

“They’re not asking Testaverde to win the game anymore,” Ram Coach John Robinson said. “So he gets the chance to play good. As soon as you say, ‘Quarterback, you’ve got to win the game,’ quarterback, shoosh, goes in the tank.

“I think they’re going to try to play the year trying not to lose the games. Don’t mess them up. Testaverde, I think, will start to grow now that he’s got the monkey off his back.”

The Rams, however, are trying to get a gorilla off their backs.

“It’s hard, but it may be the best thing for us,” receiver Henry Ellard said. “So we don’t get into that going up and then hit the slump thing again. I don’t know, but it’s something a little different, and it may help us in the long run.”

Ram Notes

In their summerlong quest to recapture a lost sense of timing, the Rams’ offensive players say there is definitely progress being made. Last week against Green Bay, they seemed out of rhythm much of the time, and John Robinson afterward said that about half of the pass plays seemed to be off a beat or two.

“We were off and on, which is expected because we haven’t been on the field together as a unit,” receiver Henry Ellard said. “We knew we were going to be a little rusty. We did some good things and some other things we barely missed on.”

Quarterback Jim Everett said it was no surprise things were a little off in Green Bay.

“I think if you looked around the entire NFL, you saw timing (as a problem),” Everett said. “It was off around the league. It’s one of those things that, through the season, you get better and you get better and you get better. Our first game, our timing was a little off. We just had some very bad experiences--fumbles, interceptions, those things that all happened in one game that might happen through an entire season.”