Pride Goeth After the Fall in Ram Defeat : Pro football: After falling behind to the Dolphins in the first quarter, they close ranks before losing, 26-10.
The Rams lost in 14 familiar minutes Sunday, then won back a sliver of pride--but, of course, not the football game--after the avalanche.
And these days, in the Rams’ era of lowered expectations and brick-by-brick renovations, that was almost enough.
The Rams (1-2) now count their losses by degree of difficulty, and Sunday, two weeks after the 33-point embarrassment in Buffalo and one week after a flat, 14-0 victory over the lowly New England Patriots, they were fairly content to compete with the Miami Dolphins (2-0) before losing, 26-10, before 55,945 at Joe Robbie Stadium.
The defense got scorched in the early going, but Coach Chuck Knox was satisfied with the way his young players hung on, keeping the Dolphins out of the end zone in the last three quarters and the game within reach.
The offense continues to crawl and wheeze, but in comparison to its previous two outings, quarterback Jim Everett and Co. looked fairly sharp in a third quarter that saw the return to productivity of receiver Henry Ellard.
And there is this, which counts only when a team has been as far down as the Rams over the past two years: Handed a 17-0 deficit, over the next three quarters, the Rams actually outscored the Dolphins.
Twelve losses in the last 13 games gets coaches to think that way.
Brick by brick.
“We had some things that happened to us,” Knox said. “We gave them the ball down there in excellent field position on one occasion.
“But our defense battled and--a credit to our football team--we didn’t fold our tent. We were down 17-0, (but) kept battling our way back.”
The closest it got after the first-quarter plundering was early in the fourth quarter, when the Rams had a chance to pull within six points with a touchdown, but had to settle for a 31-yard Tony Zendejas field goal that drew them to 20-10.
On that one drive, which started at the Ram 20, Everett completed passes of 33 and 19 yards to Ellard, who had caught only two passes--and none in last week’s victory over New England--in the first two games.
Although it stalled at the Miami 13 after a questionable ruling of incomplete on a short pass to tight end Pat Carter, the 67-yard possession was the Rams’ longest scoring drive of the season.
“We started just a little bit too late,” said Ellard, who caught four passes for 73 yards one week after his 81-game streak with at least one completion was snapped.
Miami and quarterback Dan Marino--who was 21 of 37 for 223 yards and two touchdowns--ended the Rams’ hopes with a long drive of their own, traveling 71 yards in 15 plays. They swallowed almost half of the quarter before finishing with a 27-yard field goal by Pete Stoyanovich, his third of four.
After looking shaky in the first half, Everett completed 13 of his 20 passes in the second for 178 yards and a 23-yard touchdown pass to Flipper Anderson, the Rams’ first score of the season by someone other than a running back.
Including two late Miami field-goal drives, the Ram defense kept the Dolphins out of the end zone three consecutive times when Miami had the ball inside the Ram 20.
The first stop came in the second quarter, when linebacker Roman Phifer knocked the ball out of running back Mark Higgs’ arms near the goal line, where it was recovered by linebacker Kevin Greene.
“We need to come out of the box playing harder than we did today,” said free safety Anthony Newman, who Sunday set a personal best with his third interception of the season. “In the second half, our defense played well. We just have to build from this.”
The Rams fell apart in the first quarter, however, doing an almost play-for-play repeat of the opening salvo they absorbed in the 40-7 loss in Buffalo.
The Dolphins took all of 20 plays to score 17 points before the first quarter ended, showing every reason why they are playoff contenders and the Rams are not.
Marino completed six of seven passes in the barrage, including two for touchdowns. Higgs (111 yards on the day) overpowered and outran the Ram defense for 52 yards on those three possessions.
The Ram defense got seven sacks and four interceptions against Hugh Millen and the Patriots, but no such statistics were forthcoming in Sunday’s early going.
Said cornerback Todd Lyght, who had to leave the game in the second quarter with an injured right shoulder: “They were running the ball real well. I know in the first half they were getting like six yards a pop on us, and when you can’t stop the run, that gives a guy like Marino all kinds of chances to throw on you and complete a lot of passes.”
The Dolphins scored touchdowns on their first two possessions without facing a third down. Sixteen plays into the first quarter, Marino had two touchdown passes, the Dolphins had 136 yards from scrimmage and the Rams had seven.
And when the Rams finally got their first first down, in the final minutes of the first half, they fumbled on the next play when Everett was blindsided by Bryan Cox on a missed block.
“We’re not putting a lot of points on the board. We’re not making the plays when we have to make them,” said Everett, whose offense has scored only 31 points in three games. “We’re playing good football teams, no doubt about that. But we’re just not making plays out there.”
Ram Notes
Cornerback Todd Lyght, who injured his right shoulder making a tackle on Mark Higgs in the second quarter, will be further evaluated today, but said he thought he would miss at the most three weeks and possibly as few as one. No. 1 pick Sean Gilbert was limping on the sideline in the fourth quarter and was out of the game, but the Rams said both he and linebacker Roman Phifer were out because of dehydration problems in the Miami heat. Also injured was running back Robert Delpino, who suffered a pinched nerve in his neck.