Robinson’s Nightmare Is Nearing the End : Rams: Coach prefers to talk about games. He would like to get the season over with against Seahawks as soon as possible.

With what is almost certainly his last game as Ram coach less than a week away, John Robinson kept mum about his future Monday.

He had no angry words of rebuttal for a front office that believes he must be replaced for the Rams to regain respectability, and there was none of the reflective I-can-read-the-handwriting-on-the-wall talk that marked last Monday’s postgame discussion.

“I’m not going to talk about anything except last week’s game and this week’s game,” Robinson said the day after his team’s ninth consecutive defeat, a 20-14 loss to the Minnesota Vikings.

“Let’s just talk about this game or last game. Let’s leave it at that,” he said.

A loss to the Seattle Seahawks (7-9) this Sunday would leave the Rams with a 3-13 record and set club records for consecutive losses and most losses in a season.

Only the New England Patriots, who have six victories this season, have fewer in the last two seasons than the Rams.

Robinson acknowledged feeling some relief that the season is almost over.

“You feel a lot of things,” Robinson said. “You don’t feel one thing. It’s like I told somebody, ‘Man, phone Chuck (Knox, Seattle’s coach and a possible candidate to replace Robinson), and let’s see if we can play Tuesday, in the parking lot, at 8 a.m.

“But then you feel other things, too. You want to keep playing, you want to try to do it right. You feel a lot of things. I don’t want to be described as a person who feels just one thing. And I don’t want to present myself as that, because you immediately then know it’s not true.”

Everything else Robinson had to say, clothed in an analysis of what went wrong against the Vikings, amounted to the same familiar answers to questions about the Ram season.

Quarterback Jim Everett continues to struggle, and four more interceptions Sunday brought his season total to 18, tying a career high. And he and center Tom Newberry continue to have problems with the snap; Everett lost his fifth snap on a bobble Sunday. And the defense is consistently overmatched and isn’t making things happen. The Rams forced no turnovers Sunday and have only 15 all season.

“We lost the football game again in a similar fashion,” Robinson said. “We turned the ball over, the other side didn’t. (That was) pretty much the game.

“Some of the things that have been recurring: The turnovers inside the 20, the inability to get the ball in the end zone, it was very frustrating again. I felt we played hard but again denied ourselves any chance to win. It’s a nightmare that just doesn’t seem to end.”

Robinson spoke specifically about the problems experienced this year by the team’s two highest-profile players, Everett and Kevin Greene.

Greene got only his second sack of the season Sunday and still hasn’t adjusted to the Rams’ more physically demanding 4-3 front. Everett’s quarterback rating is down to 71.4, the lowest since his second season, and he is more often Error Everett, with his 18 interceptions, than Air Everett. He has thrown only 11 touchdown passes.

“One thing I regret is our overload on the passing game,” Robinson said. “The passing game has short-circuited on us, I think. We’ve maybe put too much pressure on it.

“If we were going to do it all over again, we would change what we were doing and put less pressure on the passing game. We probably just did too much because we have become error-prone or just . . . we just short-circuit, particularly inside the 20.”

Everett threw two interceptions Sunday when the Rams appeared ready to score, and one of them was returned 97 yards for a Viking touchdown by cornerback Reggie Rutland.

After the game, Greene said the new defensive coaches were finally beginning to play him outside and let him rush, instead of having coverage or run-stopping duties first.

“You know, finding the proper place for him next year, and to have other people that play, that’s a significant study and decision for the off-season,” Robinson said.

But Robinson said that Greene’s resurgent pass rushing Sunday was less a matter of a changed scheme than better pressure up the middle--specifically from rookie David Rocker.

Robinson compared Greene’s low output this year to the slumps experienced by Minnesota’s Chris Doleman and San Francisco’s Charles Haley. Doleman has only six sacks this season compared to 21 in 1989, when Viking defensive tackle Keith Millard was healthy. Haley has six sacks in an injury-plagued 49er defensive line after getting a conference-leading 16 last season.

The key to getting sacks for outside rushers is getting an inside rush, Robinson said.

“Kevin wasn’t changed,” Robinson said. “Kevin was just playing in his normal spot and got a chance to rush. And he’s rushing on the tackle. It doesn’t matter if he stands up, sits down, crosses his legs, if the tackle sits back and blocks him, it’s the same.

“But I think we got better pressure inside.”