They Win a Few Battles, but in End, They Lose War

When the Rams get right down to it, when they dissect it and break it apart, they will see Sunday night’s moral victory for what it really is.

A Mora victory.

And an L.

Sean Gilbert, the Rams’ rookie defensive tackle, didn’t need to wait for the videotape. He’d already seen the Superdome scoreboard.

“What’s a moral victory?” Gilbert snapped as he zipped shut his equipment bag. “Is it on our record? Is that, like, when we beat ‘em, but we still lose?”

Gilbert seemed to have a firm grasp of the concept.

“Either you win or you lose,” Gilbert said. “There’s no gray area. And anybody who thinks that there is shouldn’t be playing.”

If there were just a thing, if the National Football League standings included a hint of gray, the Rams’ record today would read this way:

2-2-0-2.

Two victories, two losses, no ties and two plucky performances by an overmatched team in hostile territory that shows the Chuck Knox putty-and-caulk job starting to take hold--slowly, perhaps, but surely, it surely appears.

A 13-10 loss inside the Superdome a week after a 27-24 loss inside Candlestick Park. A field goal here, a field goal there.

“We’ve definitely taken some long steps forward,” safety Pat Terrell said. “We’ve shown we can play football--good, tough-nosed football. We’re making progress, not like last year, which felt like we were slipping down a hill. I know you know what I mean.

“Last year, we were climbing a hill full of mud, sliding, trying to get a grip. Now, we’ve got our cleats on and we’re digging in. We’re holding our ground.”

Just not gaining any.

If Jim Price holds on to the football in San Francisco, the Rams are tied for first in the NFC West.

If anybody wearing a white shirt moves the football in New Orleans, the Rams are at .500, with the suddenly user-friendly New York Giants, at Anaheim Stadium, next on the schedule.

After the red-faced retreats in Buffalo and Miami, after the Inept Bowls against New England and the New York Jets, the Rams are now eight points away from 4-2. They have traveled into the dens of the last two NFC West champions and battled them toe-to-toe, except, in the end, for the toes of Mike Cofer and Morten Andersen.

So, instead, they are 2-4.

So, instead, Knox is one game behind the pace John Robinson’s Rams set after their first six games of 1991.

This kind of progress is good for the radio talk shows, but not so good for Show And Tell.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Gilbert. “We lost both of them, yet we felt we had the better team both times.”

“Right now, I feel sick,” Terrell said. “It’s frustrating to play this hard and be this focused for an opponent and not get a win. It seems like we keep playing well in two of the three areas, and it’s the one area that slips that kills us.”

Terrell was alluding to the Rams’ special teams, which were special Sunday primarily in the attention they paid New Orleans kick returners while they hauled the ball over lengthy stretches of Astroturf.

Terrell was kinder to the Ram offense--”It held its ground”--than he had any reason to be. The best thing Knox’s offense did all night was keep the defense in good field position. Need a big play? It wasn’t going to come from Cleveland Gary, who totaled 38 yards in 19 carries, or Jim Everett, who was sacked four times and threw a costly interception on third and three from the Ram 47 with 12:43 left in a tied game.

Ram offensive gains were so rare that Everett, after scampering out of bounds for 10 yards and a first down in the second quarter, thrust both arms exultantly into the air, as if he had scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl.

It came across as a frivolous gesture, a somewhat silly maneuver.

Steve Young, for instance, seldom acts this way after netting a first down.

For the Rams, big plays--the proud, the few--were left to the defense.

Reserve linebacker Leon White, a late September waiver-wire hire from Cincinnati, intercepted a Bobby Hebert pass in his own end zone and returned it to the Ram 39, the longest run all game for a Ram toting a football.

With 10 minutes left and the score tied, 10-10, Kevin Greene forced Vaughn Dunbar into a fumble that strong safety Michael Stewart recovered at the Ram 38.

With 3:40 left and the score still tied, 10-10, Terrell spearheaded a third-and-one stand at the Ram 13 that stopped Craig Heyward cold and forced the Saints to settle instead for a gimme field goal by Andersen and great potential for late nervousness.

But that would entail a move forward by the Ram offense.

Again, inertia ruled the hour.

Everett misfired high on a crossing pattern to Henry Ellard.

Everett was dragged down for no gain by Saint defensive ends Wayne Martin and Frank Warren. Everett had his final pass dislodged from Flipper Anderson by a brutal hit from cornerback Reginald Jones.

All that was left to do was for Hebert to take a few center snaps and kneel, to run out the clock, and, presumably, to give thanks.

Four quarters of constipation football were over, and a winner had been declared. Good thing for that. Put these teams into overtime and the only ones not streaming and screaming for the exits would be Knox and Jim Mora.

Knox and Mora, they’re two of kind. They love this stuff. Run the ball off tackle, control the line of scrimmage, keep the score down, keep the score close, wait for a break.

Until the Rams’ talent level catches up with the rest of the league, this is the way Knox feels he must play it.

So what is New Orleans’ excuse?

Is there such a thing as a moral defeat?