For Rams, Winning Is Believing : Pro football: Faith finally pays off, as they hold off last-minute Dallas drive to score 27-23 upset.

The Rams on the field froze in place, stunned perhaps by the sudden silence of the crowd or by their own pent-up sense of relief, and quietly watched the ball roll on the ground.

Seeing it, at this point in their increasingly exasperating season, was the only way to believe it. And maybe not even then.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said cornerback Robert Bailey, still blinking his eyes and shaking his head at the memory. “I couldn’t believe we won.”

As night fell Sunday, the last minutes of this game became one last, lingering test of faith.

After nine weeks of almost-glory and finale-failures, after fighting back and forth with the NFL-leading Dallas Cowboys through 59 minutes and 59 seconds, after believing the game was over the previous play only to see one perilous second stick on the game clock, the Rams finally won it when Dallas quarterback Troy Aikman’s pass from the Ram 14 skidded across the middle of the end zone incomplete after time had expired.

That gave the Rams a 27-23 victory over the Cowboys in front of 63,690 at Texas Stadium, the Rams’ first victory on the road in 13 attempts and easily the most important victory of Coach Chuck Knox’s second tenure with the Rams.

“What a great, great win this is for us,” said quarterback Jim Everett, who rallied the Rams (4-6) to two fourth-quarter field goals that put them ahead for good.

Though the moment on the field was calm, the celebration came later, in the locker room, when team captain Jackie Slater lifted another ball to the ceiling and handed it to Knox, the man he called “our leader.”

“I am emotionally drained,” Knox said a bit choppily after emerging from the locker room. “Big battle. I am very proud of them.”

“Today,” said Slater, “we found a way to pull out a big game.”

In the days leading up to Sunday, Knox hinted that his team needed to play a near-perfect game to defeat the NFL-leading Cowboys (8-2). From the moment the Rams won the coin-toss to the end, when Ram defenders blanketed the end zone, near-perfection is what Knox got. And it was almost not enough.

Consider:

Snapping back from his three-fumble performance in the Rams’ 20-14 loss to the Phoenix Cardinals last week, tailback Cleveland Gary was the heart of the offense once again, carrying 29 times for 110 yards, catching seven passes for 44 yards and scoring touchdowns running and receiving.

Setting the tone in the Rams’ opening possession, Gary rushed and received for 53 yards, cashing it in with a one-yard touchdown run to give the Rams a 7-0 lead.

“We had to start fast,” Slater said, “and we did.”

Though Dallas had the league’s No. 1 defense going into Sunday and had yielded only one converted first down in its past 29 third-down situations, the Rams’ offense was successful on eight of its 15 third-down tries Sunday and was able to hold onto the ball for five minutes more than Dallas’ ball-control offense.

The Rams gained 367 total yards, 124 more than the Cowboys’ defense had been allowing this season.

“There’s no doubt Dallas is good,” said Everett, who completed 22 of 37 passes for 251 yards and two touchdowns, “but I think we outplayed them today. No question.”

Dallas, with its vast array of weapons, moved consistently down the field, especially when Aikman was throwing to receiver Michael Irvin (eight catches, 168 yards), but couldn’t put up points on its final two game-deciding drives.

Dallas got its only second-half touchdown, which put it ahead, 23-21, late in the third quarter, when Kelvin Martin took Ram punter Don Bracken’s short, line-drive punt 74 yards for a touchdown.

The Cowboys’ last drive began on their own 24 with 1:50 remaining, needing a touchdown to win after Ram kicker Tony Zendejas made a 44-yard field goal that capped a 10-play, 53-yard drive, keyed by two crucial penalties by linebacker Ken Norton.

It was up to the Rams’ pass defense to save the victory.

“We were excited to be in that position and were not going to be the scapegoats,” safety Anthony Newman said. “We said in the huddle there is no way we’re going to lose this one.”

Gary and Everett admitted they found it difficult to watch as Aikman passed the Cowboys gradually upfield to the Cowboy 45 with 1:22 left, to the Ram 33 with 22 seconds left, and finally, to the Ram 14 with the clock stopped at six seconds.

After taking a timeout, Aikman took a quick drop and fired a pass toward Alvin Harper, who was briefly open near the back of the end zone. But Newman lunged in the air and “cuffed it,” as he described it, to the ground. He leaped up and shook his arm, thinking the game was over. It wasn’t.

The Rams went back to the huddle.

“A lot of talking was going on, guys were screaming, ‘Hey, we need this one,’ ” Bailey said. “ ‘Play like it’s the last play of your career.’

“That one second seemed like it took forever.”

Aikman rolled left, looked uncomfortable with what he saw, then, in desperation, flung a pass nowhere near a Cowboy.

“That last play was pretty much a free-for-all,” Aikman said. “I saw Kelvin open when he came across the middle, and just missed.”

Suddenly, the Rams had ended their long, long road-loss string, had broken the Cowboys’ 11-game home winning streak, and, at least for now, put behind them their series of valiant-but-futile efforts against good teams this season.

“They really deserved to win a game like this,” Knox said, “because that is the satisfaction that you get. And we have been in some tough ones and haven’t been able to get it done.

“But the work, the preparation and the practice attitude and everything has paid off.”

Said Cowboy Coach Jimmy Johnson: “Our guys gave a good effort, and I thought the punt return put us back in the ballgame.”

It was Martin’s third-quarter punt return, complete with his disappearing into the stadium tunnel behind the end zone, that seemed to be another key play the Rams would let get away in another key game.

Down 23-21 after three quarters, the Rams were in a situation where, in past games, they would have let this one slip away.

But, given renewed life on their ensuing position by Norton’s holding penalty on the Rams’ attempt to punt, and converting two crucial third downs on short Everett passes, the Rams went 65 yards in 16 plays to set up Zendejas’ first fourth-quarter field goal, this one a 33-yarder to give them a 24-23 lead.

One more Rams’ stop of Dallas was followed by their final field-goal drive that gave them the four-point lead, setting up the last-minute drama.

“Earlier in the year,” Bailey said, “we probably would’ve given up. But this game was special.”