Taking a Timeout to Fish and Heal : Rams: Team sees first break in season as chance to regroup after injuries, training-camp holdouts and a 1-2 start.

The Rams, trying to purge all thoughts of San Francisco 49ers from their minds for now, are going gently into this silent Sunday.

With an off-weekend to enjoy and a two-game deficit to make up, the Rams are going fishing today. Or holing up in a downtown hotel for rest. Or basically doing whatever can be done to quietly heal and hearten themselves for the long road ahead.

And once this inaugural NFL off-weekend is past--the whole NFC West is off--the Rams (1-2) hope they will be able to get back on track next Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals after a couple of derailments.

What will they do?

“I think we’ve got to go back to just concentrating on the Rams and no one else,” said Pro Bowl cornerback Jerry Gray, who will be activated off the injured-reserve list Monday after suffering an injured left knee.

“Don’t worry about Cincinnati, don’t worry about San Francisco. If we play the type of football we can play, I think we can be right there. Don’t worry about the two-game lead San Francisco has or anything like that, just go one week at a time, because we do play them two times.

“Hopefully, we can come back and play a 13-week schedule instead of a 16-week schedule.”

But the Rams do have to worry about the unbeaten 49ers. Already, because of losses to the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles, the Rams know that they will have a season of catch-up to play.

They can tell themselves all they want that the playoff race will not be decided until at least Nov. 25, in Week 12, when the Rams finally play the 49ers for the first time. Over the final five weeks, the Rams will play the 49ers again, the New Orleans Saints twice and the Atlanta Falcons once. They tell themselves that this is when the season will be up for grabs.

But with Cincinnati and the Chicago Bears--both undefeated--coming up next, unless they get their wheels slapped back on right now, the Rams’ season could be up for grabs now.

“We started off the season 1-2. I don’t think it can get much worse,” quarterback Jim Everett said. “I think the two weeks off is only going to benefit us. We’re just going to try to enjoy our time off. Enjoy and get better.”

The enjoyable part for Everett comes today, when he goes fishing on the ocean, a place not yet known to be cable-equipped.

“I’m going deep-sea fishing,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll have a radio or something on. But I’m very excited about going fishing. The only other time I think I’ve ever had a bye was in college.”

The get-better part, the Rams believe, will come as a natural result of the weekend off and the passage of time. Beset by a slew of injuries and holdouts during training camp, the Rams are just sitting and waiting for their players to get back into the lineup.

Gray, for one, is an immense addition to a secondary that has been beaten often.

Bruised young defensive linemen Bill Hawkins and Brian Smith can take it easy and avoid another weekend of pushing themselves on wounded bodies.

And tailback Cleveland Gary, the heir apparent at tailback, can get a load of practice time under his belt after an exhibition season full of back problems.

Call this a minicamp, a chance to start putting some of the long-awaited pieces back into the mix. All the Rams know is that it came at a perfect time for them.

“It’s the only way we can approach it,” Everett said. “We’re trying to turn it into a positive situation.

“No one really wants to go into two weeks off with a loss, but we’re faced with that fact. We’re also faced with the fact that we’ve had some injuries, some bumps and bruises, and hopefully we’ll have some people back after two weeks.

“And we’re going to have a chance to focus on ourselves, and make sure that we’re playing with the confidence and ability that we know we can play with.”

That means running the ball with authority, which the Rams have not been able to come close to doing this season. That means playing tight defense, which the Rams have been able to do only once, against Tampa Bay.

If the Rams are to be in the picture by the time their 49er confrontations roll around, they know that this two-game deficit cannot grow any larger.

“I would’ve preferred not to be (two games out),” Coach John Robinson said.

So, do the Rams have to win a certain number of games to find themselves challenging the 49ers again?

“I haven’t been thinking about that a lot yet,” Robinson said. “It’s obviously premature. How many do you think? Basically, what you’re saying is you have no idea. If (49er quarterback Joe) Montana is hurt for five weeks, they’re going to lose three of those. How do you know?”

Robinson, who plans to spend today with his wife in a downtown hotel and “pretend like we’re normal people, eat brunch, all that,” said he doesn’t want his team obsessed with outside factors when the season still has more than three months left.

“The trick for us is to get better,” Robinson said. “Green Bay, the Rams, Minnesota, Philadelphia, New Orleans are all 1-2, and they’re all teams we thought would be good teams and still can be good teams. We’ve just got to get going.

“I’m not trying to minimize the problems that we have--I think we have some problems. But I also don’t want to maximize or get out of proportion what 1-2 means at this point.

“Now we don’t have an easy road ahead of us--Cincinnati and Chicago are both 3-0 teams--but I think we are capable of winning any game we play from now on. And obviously, by the way we played (against Philadelphia) and against Green Bay, capable of losing . . . “