What Pride Is Left Will Be at Stake for Rams, Falcons : Pro football: L.A. can avoid being in the NFC West’s cellar <i> alone. </i> The game also will decide who has NFL’s worst defense.
The two worst teams in the NFC West, the Rams and Atlanta Falcons, will play in a half-empty Anaheim Stadium today. Does the game have any meaning at all?
“I don’t know whether it’s important or not,” Ram Coach Chuck Knox said.
“I mean, it’s important to win the football game. But what that one game is going to do with what you do next year, I don’t know.
“High notes, low notes, I can’t put my hand on those.”
Jerry Glanville, coach of the Falcons (6-9), was just as passionate about this matchup of the last-place Rams (5-10) and his next-to-last-placed Falcons:
“We’ll try to win the football game. We’ll do all we can to try to win the football game.
“It won’t change where we end up. It won’t change much, but it’ll make everybody feel better.”
On Nov. 1, when the Rams and Falcons were still weeks from elimination from playoff contention, the Falcons won, 30-28. But Atlanta probably lost its chance at making a playoff run when quarterback Chris Miller, who had thrown 15 touchdown passes in eight games, suffered torn knee ligaments during the game and was sidelined for the season.
Losing Miller, and further injuries to the Falcon defense, has put them where they are now: playing the Rams on the final Sunday for nothing, with Wade Wilson at quarterback, after making the playoffs with a 10-6 record last season.
Could Glanville forsee this?
“If I did,” Glanville said, “I would’ve left, you know? We thought we’d be every bit as good as we were last year and, hoping you get improvement, get even better. But the train sort of got derailed.”
Actually, there is a title to be decided. The Falcons have the worst defense in the NFL, yielding an average of 351.5 yards. The Rams are the second-worst, giving up 338.6.
The Rams have given up the most rushing yards, 2,149. The Falcons have yielded the most passing yards, 3,356. The two teams combined have given up 732 points.
This also is the Rams’ last chance to end their most embarrassing losing streak: 15 NFC West games, including five consecutively to the Falcons and six consecutively to the West this season.
Also, the Rams are 1-4 in their last five games and, with a loss, would end their season with three consecutive losses.
“We’re anxious to win, finish up on a winning note, get six wins under our belt,” Knox said. “So that will be the incentive.”
Said linebacker Kevin Greene: “It’d be nice to double our record from last year (three victories). Plus, we haven’t won a divisional game in quite some time--a couple of years. So definitely we need to win this one. We can’t pack it in by any means.”
During Monday night’s 41-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, the Falcons’ Deion Sanders vented his frustration by overturning a bench on the sideline.
“I think the reason he turned it over was because it was too far for some of us to reach, or we’d all turned it over,” Glanville said.
“We hate to give away the game, and Deion was frustrated he fumbled the kickoff return.
“This will be a challenge this week. But most of the time our kids come, and they play hard and they try hard, that’s all we can ask of them.
“I tell everybody I don’t have any right to complain about the injuries. . . . We’ve had a lot of success, and we’re usually in the playoffs. We’re probably going to thrill the league that we’re not there. . . .
“But I don’t have any right to complain, because we’ve been so fortunate in previous years. And this is one of those years.”
Ram Notes
In the increasingly open tailback situation, Coach Chuck Knox said he plans to start Cleveland Gary despite Gary’s recent fumbling problems and fullback David Lang’s emergence as a big-play threat from tailback. But Knox said Lang and backup Anthony Thompson also would get playing time at tailback.
Former Ram coach John Robinson will be in attendance for the first time since he walked off the field after last year’s finale loss, to Knox’s Seattle Seahawks. Robinson will do the color commentary for CBS’ broadcast of the game, which will be blacked out locally.