Steelers Quickly Show Rams Are Merely 2-5 Team : Pro football: Hoge scores three times in Pittsburgh’s 41-10 victory. Gary fumbles three times and gains only 34 yards.

The Rams did three hours of some sparkling slapstick comedy here Monday night.

Call it “America’s Funniest Football Videos.” It certainly was a major-league hit with the crowd of 56,466 at Three Rivers Stadium, who watched their Pittsburgh Steelers pummel the Rams, 41-10, in this nationally televised game.

Two interceptions here, one lost fumble there, a blown punt over there, and suddenly the Rams are 2-5 and the playoffs look like a faraway dream.

“We might be out of the playoff race and all that, but we’ve got to keep trying,” defensive end Doug Reed said. “I think it’s pretty much about pride now.”

Monday night was embarrassing and bewildering for a Ram team that thought it had turned the corner after beating the Atlanta Falcons last week. In Pittsburgh, they turned into a dead end.

Even after Gaston Green had an easy time returning the opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown and a 7-0 Ram lead 16 seconds into the game, the Rams seemed lifeless, and the Steelers quickly pounced on their confusion.

“That was a terrible football game,” Ram Coach John Robinson said after three turnovers and horrid Rams’ special teams play led to 27 Steeler points. “We made about every error you could make in the game.”

This was the first game the Rams’ offense didn’t put the ball in the end zone since Oct. 30, 1988--a string of two seasons. And, until the meaningless end, they didn’t really come close.

Against a Steeler defense designed to swallow offensive errors, Ram quarterback Jim Everett threw two key interceptions, running back Cleveland Gary lost one of his three fumbles, and Ram receivers dropped several passes.

Aside from those miscues, Keith English failed to get a punt off deep in Ram territory, and the Steelers’ Rod Woodson had two kickoff returns of more than 40 yards against the Rams’ special teams.

So time after time, the hardly-spectacular Steelers’ offense was placed in easy striking distance.

“We are self-destructing in all phases,” Robinson said. “I don’t have an explanation. You want to be as positive as you can, and I think we saw signs (in the Atlanta game). But obviously, things didn’t turn out for us tonight, so I was wrong.”

The run of Ram ridiculousness began in the first quarter, after the Steelers had countered Gaston Green’s return with a long touchdown drive, culminating in quarterback Bubby Brister’s six-yard pass play to Merril Hoge, who would end up with three touchdowns.

The Steelers, who entered the game with the 27th-ranked offense in the league, started three first-half drives in Ram territory--on Everett’s first interception, Gary’s lost fumble and Woodson’s first long kickoff return.

The Rams, who had beaten Steeler rookie cornerback David Johnson on the same out-route to receiver Henry Ellard three times earlier, paid the price for trying it one time too often. On third and one, Everett tried Ellard at the familiar spot, only to find Johnson slashing in front for an interception and 34-yard return to the Rams’ 17-yard line.

One play later, Brister looped a pass up to rookie tight end Eric Green, who had beaten safety Vince Newsome clean down the left sideline for Green’s sixth score of the season, making it 14-7. After Woodson’s big return, the Steelers’ Gary Anderson kicked a 42-yard field goal that made it 17-10.

Next, after Mike Lansford’s 32-yard field goal, came Gary’s fumble. But the Rams’ defense stiffened enough to push the Steelers out of field-goal range.

The Rams could have gained a touch of momentum before halftime, but Lansford missed a 42-yard shot, wide left. He had previously missed a 48-yarder in the first quarter, also to the left.

Then the Steelers’ scoring deluge came, and the Rams were left to shiver in the sub-40-degree weather during the final two quarters, baffled by their inability to muster any kind of charge.

Woodson returned the second-half kickoff 45 yards, setting up another Anderson field goal, making it 20-10. Altogether, the Steelers started five possessions in Ram territory.

“After their one long drive in the first quarter, I think all their scores were from close in,” Robinson said.

Three possessions after the field goal, English saw safety Gary Jones come clean through the Rams’ punt protection. Although Robinson later said that English could have gotten the kick off, English said he made a “split-second” decision that he didn’t want it blocked for a possible touchdown, and did not kick it.

He was tackled at the Rams’ six, and three plays later Hoge jumped in from one yard out and it was 24-10.

Apparently pressing, and seemingly nudged out of rhythm by the Steelers’ aggressive deep zone, Everett threw high toward Aaron Cox on the next possession, and watched as safety Thomas Everett picked off the tipped pass for an interception that he returned to the Rams’ 39.

Everett, apparently bothered by his performance, completed only 15 of 34 passes for 176 yards, plus the two interceptions. He seemed to have Flipper Anderson open deep at least three times but couldn’t connect with him.

“My emotions are a little bit high right now,” said Everett, suggesting that he wanted to look at the films before fully evaluating his performance.

After that second interception, it was all but over. The eight-yard pass from Brister to receiver Dwight Stone made it 34-10 early in the fourth quarter.

The rest of the game--with Gary on the bench after fumbling for a third time and running for only 34 yards in 15 carries--was just one long Steelertown celebration, their day in the prime-time spotlight after four years away from it.

“(Gary’s fumbles are) fairly typical of the rest of our team,” Robinson said.

“I’ve never been known as a fumbler,” Gary said. “I fumbled the football, it’s as simple as that.”

The Rams, themselves, are having inordinate troubles in prime time, losing, 38-9, on Sunday night to the Chicago Bears.

But the big number is 2-5, and the knowledge that they are in far worse shape than they could have imagined at the beginning of this season.

“We’re basically just trying to salvage the season more than anything else,” said Henry Ellard, who made seven catches for 99 yards and seemed to be the only Rams’ player who felt comfortable Monday night.

Ram Notes

The Rams deactivated backup tackle Robert Cox and newly converted receiver Alfred Jackson. . . . Injury report: Robert Delpino (concussion), Greg Clark (left ankle sprain) and Pat Carter (right knee strain).