Rams Know They Can’t Stand Pat

The Rams, who last won 11 months ago and who last lost last week, by 33 points, will try to restart their engines again today at Anaheim Stadium against a team that won twice as many games as the Rams last season.

The New England Patriots also got blown out in their opener last week against the Miami Dolphins, but that was the work of Hurricane Andrew.

After a summer dedicated to forgetting recent failures, the Rams say they remain upbeat despite last week’s 40-7 loss to the Buffalo Bills, which extended the Rams’ losing streak to 11 games--one short of the franchise record.

“We need to win this one, just for our record and to keep the mind-set of this team on the right track,” tight end Jim Price said.

“You can’t get discouraged by one game. We still have that up-tempo attitude, and after we win this week, things will change.

“Buffalo was the exception, rather than the norm. It’s not going to be how we’re going to be playing these games. Our defense isn’t going to allow that many points and our offense is going to score a bunch more points.”

New England, which rose from ruin last season to score six victories, had a week to rest after the Miami opener was rescheduled. The Patriots are led by 235-pound second-year running back Leonard Russell and quarterback Hugh Millen, a former Ram.

And the Patriots, who held the Bills to 13 points in beating them last season, come to town as underdogs.

“I think one of the crowning blows is that the Los Angeles Rams are still favored when we come out this weekend,” Coach Dick MacPherson said.

The Rams are looking at a chance to win before they must play three road games against playoff contenders in four weeks.

So today, they get a chance to play a team that has not gone to the Super Bowl the last two seasons and does not have Thurman Thomas or Bruce Smith.

“I think that the Buffalo Bills are the class of the American Football Conference,” MacPherson said. “I think that anybody who has to open up a brand-new season with them, after two Super Bowls and come in there and play them in that clime, is in real, real serious trouble.”

New England is clearly not in Buffalo’s class as an all-around offense, but with Russell, who gained 959 yards last year and was the league’s offensive rookie of the year, and fullback John Stephens, who was the league’s offensive rookie of the year in 1988, the Patriots have a backfield that can hurt the Rams, who have not proved that they can stop any rushing attack.

Millen, the Rams’ third-round pick in 1986, broke through last season, throwing for 3,073 yards and completing 60% of his passes. And with tackles Bruce Armstrong and USC’s Pat Harlow surrounding him, Millen usually is given time to throw.

New England also boasts linebacker Andre Tippett, who has 84.5 sacks and might be able to blitz quarterback Jim Everett and the Rams’ struggling one-back offense into disarray.

And Ram Coach Chuck Knox doesn’t sound so sure that his team can stay in the game even at home against the Patriots.

“I hope to be competitive with them, but they won twice as many games as this team did last year,” he said of New England. “The thing I’m going to keep working on is striving, improving, getting better every day.”

For the first time this season, at least one of the Rams’ starting defensive ends is expected to play. Right end Bill Hawkins, sidelined last Sunday because of a strained calf muscle, is strong against the run and could team with rookie right defensive tackle Sean Gilbert for some of the defensive success the Rams saw little of last week.

Ram Notes

The last time the Patriots played in Anaheim Stadium was Nov. 16, 1986, which marked the NFL debut of Jim Everett, who came off the bench and threw three touchdown passes in a 30-28 defeat. . . . Last Sunday’s game was the eighth in 17 that kicker Tony Zendejas has not attempted a field goal. He is one short of tying the NFL record for most field goals made consecutively, 24 by Kevin Butler of the Chicago Bears. . . . Either by accident or as a manifestation of Chuck Knox’s mania for detail and planning, the Rams’ in-flight movie on the trip home from Buffalo was “Patriot Games.”