Robinson Says Rams ‘in Big Trouble’ : Pro football: This time it’s Chicago’s Harbaugh who has a personal-record game against the Rams’ defense in Bears’ 38-9 victory.

These befuddling 1990 Rams, by now you know them so well: First in offensive production, first in preseason expectations and, for the forseeable future, last in the NFC West.

Last and playing defense in a way that offers mediocre quarterbacks the opportunity to have the games of their lives.

Last, plumbing what their head coach called “rock bottom” with a 1-4 record and finding themselves jockeying for draft position, not home-field advantage.

And, after Sunday night’s 38-9 loss to the Chicago Bears and their superstar-for-a-day quarterback Jim Harbaugh, dead last and reduced to watching their season of Super-dreams slip away loss by loss by loss.

It is enough to make a poor head coach sound as if he suddenly can’t wait for the Rams’ next week off, which, if all continues this way, should come around the first week of January and extend far beyond.

“It was obviously a terrible performance on our part,” Coach John Robinson said. “We are just not playing the football that we can play or thought we could play. Our football team is obviously in big trouble.”

The facts: In the decisive first half, the Bears scored a touchdown every time they had the ball save for their last, when they took over with only 37 seconds remaining. They converted all seven of their first-half third-down attempts. They outgained the Rams 254 to 91, and they controlled the ball for nearly 19 minutes. When that half was over, it was 28-0, and the Rams were four games behind the 49ers.

The Rams have given up a personal record passing day to an opposing quarterback for the second consecutive week (Sunday, Harbaugh’s 248 yards; last week, Boomer Esiason’s 471 yards) and seem to have no answers for how to stop the record-book parade.

After Sunday night’s exposing of all-to-familiar Ram weaknesses, Robinson admitted he has had deep worries about this team for some time, deep enough for him to finally, exasperatedly and publicly give voice to them.

“You don’t want to be in a position where you acknowledge that you’re in deep trouble this year,” Robinson said, explaining why he hasn’t sounded so disconsolate in the Rams’ previous defeats. “Privately, we were very concerned about some things, and publicly we just tried (to keep) some of those things at bay.

“But there’s no sense in us minimizing the state that we’re in. We just are unable to do much of anything, really.”

On top of this reckoning, the Rams had more bad news: The loss of inside linebacker Fred Strickland for the season after he broke the fibula in his left leg on a second-quarter play.

A week after yielding 563 yards to a diverse Cincinnati Bengal offense, the Rams allowed 402 to a Bear offense that was previously a one-dimensional running team and happy to be that way.

The Rams went into this game with the idea to hold the Chicago offense early, put the ball in the end zone when they had it and force the Bears out of their pound-it-out mindset. Then reality hit hard on this dank Chicago night.

The Bears (5-1), looking a bit awkward but still moving the ball on a blitzing Ram defense, took the opening kick-off and drove 88 yards on 12 plays, the last a 12-yard Harbaugh to Neal Anderson touchdown pass.

On the scoring play, the Rams’ three-man rush gave Harbaugh time in the pocket to look left, look right, look all over, look mighty comfortable, then find Anderson breaking free across the back of the end zone to the right corner.

There went the stop-the-Bear-offense part of the plan.

Three plays later, Ram quarterback Jim Everett floated one too far for tight end Pete Holohan over the middle, and the ball was snared by Bear cornerback Donnell Woolford and returned to the Ram 36.

And there went the score-early part of the strategy.

Five plays later, the Bears led, 14-0, after Harbaugh darted up the middle and dove into the end zone for a 12-yard touchdown, and Robinson said he couldn’t help but flash back to last week’s 21-0 Bengal first-half Ram blitzkrieg.

“Another slow start--it’s shocking,” Robinson said.

After the next Ram drive fizzled when they failed on fourth and one from the Chicago 42, the Bears stormed right back up the field for a 58-yard touchdown drive and a 21-0 lead.

The Rams offense sputtered. Once again, they drove into Chicago territory, but again turned the ball over on downs after going for a first down on fourth and short.

The offense, which totaled only 267 yards, never seemed to recover fully.

“I’m personally embarrassed,” Everett said of the team’s overall performance. “I never dreamt that we would be in this type of position, but we are. Right now, we’re stinking up the field.”

At one point in the first half, Harbaugh, who had completed only 51 passes going into Sunday, whose personal record pass-yardage total was 205 and who had thrown just three touchdown passes all year, strafed the Ram defense for nine consecutive completions. Harbaugh passed his personal record early in the third quarter and could have gunned for a doubling of that total if he had remained in the game.

Pretty soon, after another long, pass-driven Bear drive and a 13-yard touchdown romp by Brad Muster, Chicago led, 28-0, and the half and any hope of a Ram renaissance on this night was done.

“Nobody’s making any plays,” said cornerback Jerry Gray, who just missed an interception that could have been returned for a touchdown but instead turned into a 32-yard Bear gain. “That play is just a sign of what’s wrong: one step away from being 4-1 or 5-0.”

The Rams averted total embarrassment and the shutout in the third quarter when a 53-yard Everett-to-Flipper Anderson bomb set up an 11-yard touchdown pass to Buford McGee, slicing the lead to 31-6. But even that meaningless score had its sorrows for the Rams--kicker Mike Lansford flubbed the extra-point attempt wide left.

After the Bears made it 38-9 on a 15-yard Anderson touchdown run, the Rams officially tossed in the towel by removing Everett for backup Chuck Long, who saw his first action of the season.

“It’s difficult,” said Everett, who finished with only 13 completions on 31 attempts for a season-low 187 yards, one touchdown and one interception. “Not only talking (to the media), but looking in the mirror. It’s not who we think we are.

“Right now, it’s a real low point for us. I just hope this isn’t how the whole season goes.”

Ram Notes

Starting inside linebacker Fred Strickland, who has been plagued by injuries throughout his career, fractured his left fibula in the second quarter and will miss the rest of the season. Strickland appeared to have been hit in the leg from behind by a falling Bear player.

Other than Strickland, the Rams had no serious injuries. Both receiver Henry Ellard and cornerback Alfred Jackson suffered hip flexors but are not expected to miss any time.

* NO HURRY: Bear quarterback Jim Harbaugh is given plenty of time to enjoy a big night. John Weyler’s story, C13.

* STAR MAKERS: No matter how paltry a quarterback’s talent might be, the Rams will make him look great. Mike Penner’s story, C14.