Rams Seek to Keep Eagles Grounded : Pro football: No love will be lost when the teams play at Anaheim Stadium today.

Perhaps because they so clearly dislike each other and so often seek the same prize, the Rams and the Philadelphia Eagles keep getting thrown together.

When there is a coach’s job to be saved or lost, when there is a playoff spot to win, when there is a season to salvage, almost always, these teams are playing.

When there are insults to exchange, brash words to bellow, fingers to jab in the direction of a particularly upsetting opponent, almost always, it’s the Rams against the Eagles.

“I think it’s a sort of rivalry that’s building more and more each year,” Ram quarterback Jim Everett said. “There’s certainly no love lost between the Eagles and the Rams, I’ll tell you that.”

When the Rams play the Eagles today at Anaheim Stadium, there is only Buddy Ryan’s tenure as Philadelphia’s coach to maintain, the Eagles’ status as contenders to retain and the Rams’ hopes for early season momentum to sustain.

You think the 1-1 Rams wouldn’t love to knock the Eagles to 0-3, sending the Ryan Era into its most serious tailspin? You think the Eagles wouldn’t savor arising from their pratfall out of the gate to knock down the team that eliminated them from last season’s playoffs?

The scene was set for this game late last December when the Rams used a tricky zone defense to throttle the Eagle offense for a 21-7 wild-card victory.

It was the Rams’ first defeat of a Ryan-coached Eagle team, and the loss amplified whispers that owner Norman Braman would not tolerate another playoff flop.

“Oh yeah, we’d like another shot at them,” Eagle defensive coordinator Jeff Fisher said. “There’s a lot of reason to go there and get back at them. We’ve had a lot of success against them up until this point, and we stumbled.”

And here the Eagles are, stumbling in September, coming off a 23-21 upset loss at home to the Phoenix Cardinals. Talk of ousting Ryan is getting louder.

“We look back to our loss last year against the Rams and we see we had the opportunity to do something,” Eagle quarterback Randall Cunningham said. “Now we’re 0-2, we’re either going to rebound and bounce back and have a good year, or it’s not going to happen. Sooner or later, we need a win.”

The Eagles are not calling this a must-win situation. They are not saying that they must avoid an 0-3 start to stay in playoff contention.

In a similar situation in 1988, the Eagles were 4-5, coming off a home loss to Atlanta and playing for Ryan’s job against the Rams, who were 7-2. The Eagles pulled it out, 30-24.

“I don’t think they’re going to surprise us,” Everett said. “They’re coming. (But) I don’t really give a . . . about the Philadelphia Eagles. What concerns me is the Los Angeles Rams. We have no control over what (the Eagles) do.

“They can come in here, they can be . . . off, whatever. But the only thing we can control is ourselves. We’re fighting in our division. We can’t afford to lose ballgames. That’s what we can control. I don’t give a . . . about the rest of it.

“We’re a good football team. They’re a good football team. Both teams have a lot riding on this game, and we’re coming to play to win.”

Each team, so familiar with what the other wants to do, has no doubts about what the key aspects of today’s game will be.

The Rams, as they did last December, hope to confine Cunningham to the pocket and use a mixture of zone defenses to take away his deep passes.

Almost as a direct result of their inability to decipher the Rams’ zones, the Eagles dumped offensive coordinator Ted Plumb and hired Rich Kotite to revamp and revitalize the offense. But the Rams say that as long as Cunningham is the quarterback, the defensive game plan doesn’t change.

“The emphasis is pretty much the same,” Ram defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur said. “Obviously, the big part of the attack is built around Cunningham. He’s their leading rusher right now.

“A lot of the emphasis of the offense is the same as it was a year ago. I’m looking at similar kinds of action.

“But I don’t think you can go play him exactly the same way this time. They’ve had the opportunity to look at that film, see us. So it would be goofy to go in there with the same kind of plan.”

Also, Philadelphia has Pro Bowl tight end Keith Jackson back after a long holdout, and although he didn’t return to the team until Wednesday, he is expected to play extensively. The Eagle offense has struggled without him and is counting on his presence to open things up for a young set of receivers.

Philadelphia hopes to overwhelm the Ram offensive line and create turnovers.

Through their first two losses, the Eagles have created only two turnovers, a flaw in Ryan’s all-or-nothing scheme.

“If you look at the history of our football team, if we don’t get turnovers, we usually don’t win,” Ryan said. “Things just haven’t popped the right way, but they will. Things balance out.

“I think we have one of the best defensive lines in pro football. We’ve gotten to most quarterbacks in this league, and I don’t see why we can’t get to Everett.”

Ram Notes

This is the Eagles’ first visit to Anaheim Stadium. The last time they played the Rams in the Southland was in 1977, when they lost, 20-0, at the Coliseum. It was Ram quarterback Joe Namath’s last NFL victory. . . . Buddy Ryan got his first NFL coaching victory when the Eagles beat the Rams in 1986.