Path to Nowhere Goes to Tampa : Pro football: Trying to rebuild, Rams and Buccaneers are stuck in the same place at 4-8.

The 1992 party is over for the Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but the lights will be shining bright anyway tonight.

This matchup of 4-8 teams has post season implications--far into the postseason. Forget about the playoffs, we’re talking post-postseason.

Does this have any meaning for 1992? Not a chance. These are two teams that might not be ready for Super Bowl-contention until the next presidential election.

But this nationally televised game has implications for next year’s draft and regular-season and for the collective mind-sets of two young teams wandering into December play-for-pride time with histories of chaotic collapse.

The Rams, in particular, recently have lost their composure when they have lost pace with the playoff race.

In 1990, they entered December 4-7 and ended the season 5-11, losing their final four games. Last season, they lost their final 10 games, including all four in December by a combined 101-43 score. They finished 3-13.

Tampa Bay, which has clinched its 10th consecutive non-winning season, closed last season 1-3 in December to fill out its 3-13 record.

These are the reasons both teams have new coaches this season, although Tampa’s Sam Wyche and the Rams’ Chuck Knox entered their new tasks with a combined 27 years of NFL head-coaching experience.

The Rams, after a spirited if not quite successful first portion of 1992, have already begun to limp a little--losing their last two games by 17 and 14 points and watching quarterback Jim Everett get pulled from last week’s game with more than a quarter to play.

Everett will be back in the lineup Sunday, but will the Rams’ hearts be in it? Knox says that his players won’t quit.

“Our position’s going to be (that) this is going to be a four-game season for us,” Knox said.

The Ram players say they see a chance to build momentum heading into the 1993 preseason.

“We’ve got four games left in the season,” safety Anthony Newman said, “and we want to win them all. We feel like our season is just starting. We’ve got four games, and we want to finish with a four-game winning streak. And the first one is Tampa Bay.

“We don’t want to go out losing, we want to come out on a winning note. The last four games are going to be a test for us to get better and make something positive going into next year.

“We can finish the season 8-8, and that’s a big improvement from 3-13 last year.”

Knox, however, grudgingly compares the Rams’ rebuilding with Tampa Bay’s seemingly eternal state of repairs.

“Tampa Bay has been building longer (than the Rams), regardless of who the coaches were,” Knox said.

“But there are similarities in that both have new coaches and both have the same record.”

Wyche is more eager to compare the two teams, pointing out that his team has played some strong games--as have the Rams--but also crumbled at times when the real pressure was on.

Tampa Bay, behind tailback Reggie Cobb’s emergence as a top runner, started with three victories in its first four starts, but then lost five in a row.

If the Buccaneers could win three of their final four games, their seven victories would be their most since 1981, when John McKay coached them to a 9-7 record.

If the Rams merely split their final four, their 6-10 record would be their best since 1989, when they went 11-5.

“George Allen used to say consistency’s the most important word in the game,” Wyche said. “If you know what your players are going to do every Sunday, you can stay away from their weaknesses and play to their strengths.

“Young teams, transitional teams are always going to be a little inconsistent. That’s just the way it is. And they generally end up costing you games.

“But we’re not a team going backward. I don’t think the Rams are going backward. I think both of us are getting a little bit better. You know, you get better and still don’t win in this business.

“But unless you go through that getting-better stage, you don’t get to the point where you do win.”

Ram Notes

Tampa Bay ‘s Reggie Cobb has 916 yards in 237 carries and could become its first 1,000-yard runner since James Wilder in 1985. The Rams’ rushing defense, last in the NFL all season, is giving up an average of 144.7 yards. . . . Jim Everett has had two 70%-plus completion-rate games against Tampa, including 1990’s four touchdown passes during a 35-14 victory in Tampa. . . . Ram Coach Chuck Knox said that he hopes the officials will give the Ram defensive players enough time to make changes in response to the Buccaneers’ no-huddle, quick-huddle offensive gimmicks.