Rams’ Comeback Falls Way Short in Loss to Saints : Football: After record rally last week, they unravel, turning the ball over six times, and lose 37-14.

Eager to fashion a sequel to one of their most scintillating and critically acclaimed efforts in years, the Rams on Sunday fell a little short.

Short of talent, short of patience, short of just about everything it takes to beat the steady, heady New Orleans Saints, who took the Rams’ six turnovers and various other miscues and turned them into 37 consecutive points.

Short of everything, it seems, but the knack for handing over gifts to everybody they play.

Two meaningless touchdowns made the final score, 37-14, but after the Rams’ amazing comeback victory over Tampa Bay last week, that hardly placated the Anaheim Stadium crowd of 47,355--or, more importantly, Coach Chuck Knox, who could only count this as a form of education for his 5-9 football team.

“I think the lesson is . . . ,” Knox said in his best taskmaster voice afterward, “you cannot play Santa Claus and have a chance to win.

“You can’t turn the ball over and get the penalties we got and have a chance to win.”

At least not against the Saints, who raised their record to 11-3.

A week ago, the Rams spotted Tampa a 27-3 halftime lead, then passed the Buccaneers with four second-half touchdowns to steal a 31-27 victory, the biggest comeback in franchise history.

And what, by chance, were the Rams thinking about at halftime Sunday, having handed the Saints a 23-0 lead?

“Can we do it two weeks in a row?” wide receiver Jeff Chadwick said. “Sure. There was a chance we could do it.”

Eventually, reality and the relentless efforts of the Saints knocked the Rams back down to earth.

“But let’s face it,” Chadwick said, “the Saints aren’t Tampa Bay.”

Against the Bucs, all those fumbles and foolish foibles were just a prelude to Ram greatness. Against the Saints, they were the beginning of the end.

“We are a pretty good team,” said Saint quarterback Bobby Hebert in what may or may not be a classic New Orleans understatement. “Today, we got a big lead at halftime, and we just didn’t want the same thing that happened (to the Bucs, happen) to us as we saw the Rams come back against Tampa Bay.” This week, Cleveland Gary’s fumble on the Rams’ first play from scrimmage set up the Saints’ first touchdown, although Saints’ kicker Morten Andersen did blow the extra-point try, his first miss in 121 attempts.

After the Saints dribbled away a punt return and handed the ball to the Rams at the New Orleans 17, the ensuing interception of a Jim Everett pass set up another Saint touchdown.

Some sloppy Ram pass coverage and tackling on the next New Orleans possession resulted in another Saint touchdown. At that point it was 20-0, and the second quarter still had almost 4 1/2 minutes to go.

“This is the worst,” Ram safety Anthony Newman said. “We got beat up and down today. We really did--every which way.”

The Rams’ offense, which went into this game plotting to keep Everett upright against the Saints’ league-leading pass rush, kept the Saints sackless but accomplished almost nothing else against a defense that sat back in a soft zone and let the Rams do their bumbling.

Their first-half output: 28 offensive plays, 101 yards, five turnovers, no hope.

Everett, whose fourth-quarter performance brushed up an otherwise mediocre day, said the Rams were “totally humiliated.”

“Granted, they’re a fine, fine football team,” Everett said, “but we assisted them in a lot of ways.”

The Rams kept up the pace in the second half, when defensive end Gerald Robinson’s late hit on Hebert helped the Saints score again. This time it was a one-yard plunge by tailback Vaughn Dunbar, who carried 13 times for 91 yards after starter Fred McAfee separated his shoulder in the early going.

Having finally marched deep into Saint territory on their next possession, Gary fumbled again--his third lost fumble in two games and his eighth of what had been until recently his breakthrough season.

Overall on the day, the Rams lost three fumbles and Everett had three passes intercepted.

“You try not to think too much about it and go on,” Chadwick said. “But as it goes on, it gets to the third quarter, you look at the scoreboard and see who’s doing most of the damage. It wasn’t us.”

It was the worst turnover day of the Rams’ 1992 season, and, according to most of the players, their worst team performance of the year, too.

“Right now, we’ve got to try to put this game behind us because it was such a butt-whupping that we can’t dwell on this game,” Newman said. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

The Rams have now lost 15 consecutive division games, have lost six in a row to the Saints and have squared their December record at 1-1. Last week, the Rams declared that they would consider the final four games of 1992 a four-game season.

Said cornerback Todd Lyght: “We wanted to come out and finish the season strong. We come back to win in Tampa, which was great, shows that the team can come from behind.

“But what’s disappointing is to come out and have a letdown against New Orleans. Pretty much, they did whatever they wanted to do on the field today.”

The Saints went ahead, 37-0, on a Craig Heyward nine-yard touchdown run after Gary’s fumble, and the game was all over but the clock ticking.

New Orleans, which entered the game struggling on run offense, pounded out 161 rushing yards against the Rams’ last-rated run defense, and Hebert was an efficient 15 of 25 for 238 yards and two touchdowns.

“Even though they aren’t a very good team against the rush, they played well,” said Heyward, who finished with 86 yards from scrimmage. “But we executed a lot better. We went out and established the run, which opened up everything else.

“Everything went according to plan.”

For the Rams, everything collapsed, and they have lost their past two home games by a combined 68-31.