Rams Find How Low You Can Go : Pro football: Cowboys capitalize on defensive slips and Gary’s fumble for 24-21 victory.

Although the laws of mathematics may insist otherwise, the Rams Sunday stumbled into one of the axioms of late-season football logic:

When you lose to the Dallas Cowboys to drop your record to 3-7, when your stumble out of the gate lasts 10 games and counting, when the fight to restore personal pride becomes your last best battle call, your season is gone.

The numbers say the Rams still could make the playoffs, but the real proof is in the pounding. Just roll this around in your mouth: Those awe-inspiring Cowboys (4-7) are now in better shape to make a playoff run than the Rams.

“Somebody will write in here (that) the Rams give up, so I cannot say that,” Ram Coach John Robinson said after his team’s 24-21 loss to Dallas Sunday in front of 58,589 at Anaheim Stadium.

“(But) neither can I try to give you some scenario that sees us winning five of the last six and going 8-8.”

He is not alone, especially after a Dallas offense that had not scored a touchdown in the past two weeks made every play it had to and rolled up 359 yards against the Rams.

“The playoffs,” said quarterback Jim Everett, “are out of the picture.”

The Rams, who chugged into this season convinced they were a well-oiled, well-drilled, well-stocked Super Bowl contender, discover themselves after 10 weeks only well-done.

And Sunday afternoon they were forced to concede that their only lasting hope for 1990 is to regain at least a fraction of their former respect, if that is at all possible in this winter of discontent.

“We may not make the playoffs, but we’ve got to play for pride from here on out,” cornerback Jerry Gray said. “We can’t let people come in here and just steamroll us. We can’t let this year break us down.”

What’s left are two games--including next Sunday--against the 10-0 San Francisco 49ers, a team so far ahead of the Rams now that it seems hard to believe. What’s left is the role of spoiler, a fallback position for failed dreams.

Sunday’s game was a symbol of why the Rams find themselves peering up at the Cowboys and almost everybody else in football.

The Rams did not play dismally, but were done in by a handful of game-turning plays that went Dallas’ way.

The pivotal moment came when tailback Cleveland Gary had the ball knocked loose and recovered by Cowboy linebacker Ken Norton at the Dallas five-yard line early in the fourth quarter. Three plays later, Troy Aikman dropped a short pass to tailback Emmitt Smith, who ran past three Ram defenders for a 44-yard gain to the Ram 27, setting up Ken Willis’ game-deciding 23-yard field goal.

When the Ram offense got the ball back, down by three points and with 4:05 left, a Tony Tolbert sack of Everett on third down ended it.

On the day when Gary (24 carries for 103 yards) was the Rams’ main offensive weapon, Everett was only 14 of 25 for 139 yards, the fourth consecutive game he has struggled.

“We should’ve dominated them, but we didn’t do it,” Gray said. “We’re not a good team right now. We’ve got good personnel, but the chemistry just isn’t there. Our record proves we’re not a good team.”

Not being a good team on Sunday meant a defensive secondary that allowed Dallas pass plays of 61, 57, and 44 yards; it meant the fumble by Gary just as the Rams were about to break a fourth-quarter 21-21 tie; it meant an offense that got one last real chance to pull off a comeback and ended up losing five yards in three plays and punting the ball meekly away.

It meant that right here and right now, the Rams are a worse team than the Cowboys.

“It’s as low or as difficult a situation as any team that I’ve been involved with has been in,” Robinson said. “I think we all know what’s happened is nightmarish to us, very painful to us, and I cannot or I will not try to dissect and define it other than it seems to be teamwide, it seems to cover all areas.

“I cannot give you an explanation why. I think we’re working hard. We just are playing games horribly.”

The Cowboys and Aikman did their best to get the Rams off to a quick-strike start, throwing a pass straight into the arms of safety Vince Newsome on the game’s third play.

Newsome returned the pass 11 yards to the Cowboy 36, and five plays later, Gary squirted through a huge hole on the left side of the line for a 16-yard touchdown and a 7-0 Ram lead.

But two possessions later the Cowboys, who had converted only one third-down attempt last week against the 49ers and were zero for their first three Sunday, converted three consecutive third-down tries, including a 10-yard touchdown lob to receiver Michael Irvin to even the score.

On the scoring play, Ram cornerback Darryl Henley was with Irvin until the ball was thrown. At that moment, Henley slipped and tumbled face down to the turf, freeing Irvin for the easy catch.

Quickly enough, the Rams churned out a 12-play, 98-yard, 7:25 drive concluding with the second of Gary’s three touchdown runs, the kind of march the Rams had grown used to yielding, not taking, and it gave them a 14-7 lead.

But the big-play defensive blunder soon hit the Rams hard again.

This time it started with Smith catching a medium-range pass over the middle and breaking by several Rams for a 57-yard completion to the Ram 22. That was the Cowboys’ longest pass play of the season.

A late hit on Aikman pushed the ball to the seven-yard line. And only 1:58 after the Rams’ long drive, Aikman hit fullback Tommie Agee for a six-yard touchdown pass, knotting the score at 14.

On the next Cowboy possession, Aikman simply lofted a deep throw to Irvin, streaking down the left side, and the Ram secondary did all the rest. Like Henley before him, Ram cornerback Bobby Humphery was reasonably close to Irvin until the ball dropped down, when Humphery, too, picked the wrong time to stumble to the ground.

That left Irvin alone to haul in the pass and score a 61-yard touchdown--the new longest Cowboy pass play of 1990--giving Dallas a 21-14 lead at the half.

Gary opened the second half with a career-long 48-yard jaunt through the right side of the line to the Cowboy 24, and soon after jumped in from one yard out for a 21-21 score that set up the scenario that lost the game.

“It’s not the coaches, it’s not the mangement who’s losing these games,” tackle Jackie Slater said. “Every player has to look at himself. We’re the ones who are losing them.”

Ram Notes

Ram receiver Henry Ellard re-aggravated his right hamstring during the first half and did not play in the second. Aaron Cox played in his place. . . . The Rams’ two deactivations were offensive lineman Joe Milinichik and cornerback Clifford Hicks. . . . Brett Faryniarz replaced starting outside linebacker Mike Wilcher, who had been having headaches all week, but Wilcher did play.