Rams Defenseless in Overtime Loss, 34-31 : Pro football: After coming back from a 21-0 deficit, they lose to the Bengals when Jim Breech kicks a 44-yard field goal in extra period. L.A. record slips to 1-3.

Suddenly stuck in the muck of a 1-3 start, a group of Rams sat still at their lockers Sunday and tried to explain it all over again.

They said the same things. They pointed to the same weaknesses and they felt the same pain.

Stunned, shaken and still seething, linebacker Kevin Greene gazed out blankly through the questioners and slowly let the dreary sameness of Sunday’s exhausting 34-31 overtime defeat by the Cincinnati Bengals sink in.

All the frustration of a defense that once again got torched early and often--this time for 563 total yards and three touchdown passes by quarterback Boomer Esiason.

All the pain of surrendering big plays as the game was decided--on this day letting the Bengals break out from terrible field position to set up the winning 44-yard field goal by Jim Breech.

All the aggravation of an offense that cannot seem to score when it is most needed--failing to capitalize in the times the Rams had the ball.

All the sense of a season gone alarmingly wrong, the same feelings that had first bubbled up in their losses to Green Bay and Philadelphia. All over again.

“We all feel it,” Greene said. “It’s frustrating. I personally have been playing like crap. We had the motive, we had the feeling. . . . A loss like that is disheartening.”

This was a loss in which the Rams yielded 21 points before scoring, in which the Rams battled back to 31-31 in the final minutes of regulation, in which the game seemed theirs when they won the toss in overtime and in which the final result was no better than the ones before it.

This was a loss that puts the Rams three games behind the team they are determined to overcome this season, the San Francisco 49ers, defending champions.

This was a loss that left the Rams, who had an extra week of practice and were playing a team embroiled in controversy all week, scrambling for straws, reaching hard and far for hope.

“The loss was obviously heart-breaking,” Coach John Robinson said. “Many people will predict our doom, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

This, in the face of the futility of their big comeback, was a loss that could measured in the look of Greene’s eyes and the softness of his voice.

“I know everybody’s going to try to bury us now, but we just have to turn it up,” Greene said. “A loss like this, we’ve got to get out of our minds. Can’t let this linger or it will ruin our season. Let it hurt, let it burn, but forget about it in a couple of days.”

The Rams, if they can, should begin by erasing the surely bitter memories of all the chances they had to pull out this game.

They had a chance to win it on their final possession of regulation, but could reach only to the Bengal 39 with 14 seconds left before they were stopped.

They had two more shots in overtime--after winning the toss, the Rams got the ball first--but could muster only one first down.

And, finally, they had the chance to at least keep the Bengals (4-1) from victory in overtime when, after a Keith English punt, Cincinnati took over at its 11-yard line.

Esiason, who was at his crafty best all game, led the Bengals on the winning 63-yard drive from that spot, completing all five of his passes.

“It’s as big a win as a team could have because of the odds we had,” said Bengal Coach Sam Wyche, referring to the furor caused by his stand against allowing women in his team’s locker room and the disparity in the two teams’ practice time. Cincinnati had played on Monday night and the Rams had last weekend off.

“I don’t think a team in the history of the game has played against this kind of odds.”

Cincinnati waved good-by early, striking first and fast for a 14-0 lead before the Rams could remind themselves that this was no longer their off week.

“It was kind of like one of those big-time heavyweight fights,” cornerback Jerry Gray said. “They came in, they knocked us around and we were off-balance and didn’t really know what to do.

“And then all of a sudden, hey, we realized that it was going to be a fight, that we had to go out there and fight the guys back. We were letting them push us all over the field, and we weren’t doing anything. We were reacting to what they were doing.”

On the Bengals’ first possession, on a playbook-perfect Esiason fake to running back Harold Green, running back James Brooks streaked free down the right sideline for a 27-yard touchdown pass after Gray and safety Vince Newsome bit on the deception.

Then, after a Cleveland Gary fumble gave the ball to Cincinnati at its own 41, Esiason led the Bengals back up the field on a piercing, five-play drive that culminated in a nine-yard touchdown toss to Brooks, giving Cincinnati a 14-0 lead before 13 minutes had elapsed.

On those first two drives, Esiason completed six of seven passes for 121 yards and the two scores, well on his way to his 30 completions in 44 attempts for 471 yards. Esiason hit tight end Rodney Holman 10 times for 161 yards, Brooks seven times for 109 and Tim McGee eight times for 142.

All that without Pro Bowl receiver Eddie Brown, the team’s best deep threat.

“Without Brown, we knew that Holman would be the man,” Ram defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur said. “We knew. But we just couldn’t stop him.”

The rampage went on unabated through the second quarter, when the Bengals did their example of a sustained drive, going 73 yards on 11 plays. When the drive was over, six minutes 10 seconds had elapsed, Esiason had 201 passing yards on only 13 attempts (10 completions), running back Eric Ball had plunged for a one-yard score and Cincinnati was ahead, 21-0.

The Rams’ first answer did not come until Jim Everett’s five-for-five passing for 56 yards set up a two-yard touchdown run by Gary, making it 21-7 with 36 seconds left in the half.

Then the Rams gradually worked back into the game, converting Vince Newsome’s third-quarter stripping of Green by scoring on 55-yard pass from Everett to wide open Flipper Anderson four plays later.

But the Bengals snapped back and sapped whatever momentum the Rams had gained on the next series. Esiason accounted for 80 of the touchdown drive’s 85 yards on four passes, picking apart the Rams’ zone defense by matching Holman and the running backs on the outmanned Ram linebackers.

Green had an easy dance into the end zone on a confused Ram defense when the Bengals went into their no-huddle offense and he was left unguarded for a 14-yard touchdown pass from Esiason.

But the Ram offense had awakened, and Everett led them to touchdowns on their next two possessions, a nine-yard scoring pass to tight end Damone Johnson and a one-yard leap by Gary after linebacker Mike Wilcher picked up an Esiason fumble.

Overall, Everett was only slightly overshadowed by Esiason, completing 25 of his 46 passes for 372 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. Gary used his first NFL start impressively, picking up 92 yards on 20 carries.

The Rams’ offense totaled 477 yards.

“The defenses were not the leaders out there today,” Robinson said.

After a trade of late-game field goals and that last Ram threat as the clock wound down, it was 31-31, and the game was headed to overtime.

“I thought when we won that toss, the offense was going to go right and and we’d win,” defensive lineman Doug Reed said. “But it just didn’t happen.”

Said Everett: “We knew the Bengals could score and score fast, and that’s what we did. But I thought we had things going our way in overtime. There were opportunities that we just missed.”

In the extra period, the Rams and Bengals traded punts, before the Rams, with good field position, got the ball on their 44 to start their second drive. Three plays took them to the Bengal 47, one long yard short of a first down.

After some consideration over the fourth-down play, Robinson chose to punt and pin the Bengals deep in their own territory.

“Finally, we gave them one too many chances, I guess,” Robinson said.

* ON TARGET: Boomer Esiason passes for a Cincinnati club-record 471 yards against the Rams, even without his deep-threat receiver Eddie Brown. John Weyler’s story, C13.