Considering the Foe, Rams Were a Safe Bet

Rams win! Rams win! Rams win! In an NFL season opener between St. Louis past and St. Louis future, the winners were the mighty lame ducks from Anaheim, 14-12, over outspoken Buddy Ryan and his out-chokin’ Arizona Cardinals. Put that on your Fox network and smoke it.

Wearing a bright red star on his shirt front and an expression as sad as Pagliacci’s, poor old Buddy was so stupefied by the defeat that he moaned, “It wasn’t like we were playing the Dallas Cowboys.”

Oh, go punch a coach.

The way Ryan’s hopefuls performed Sunday, they might not have outplayed the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. The Cardinals were everything you ever wanted in an opponent, and less. Anybody who ever got down on the Rams must obviously have forgotten the Cardinals’ team motto: “You Think YOUR Team Is Bad.” Here was the one team in football that could make the Rams look like the Cowboys.

How ‘bout them Rams, Bud?

“I don’t care enough about the Rams to make any statements about them,” Ryan said.

Ouch.

Getting a no-comment out of Buddy, which is tantamount to getting a no-comment out of Don King, surely was the ultimate proof that the Rams had had the last laugh. The Rams are in first place and nyah, nyah, you’re not. This is one of those natural phenomena that you only see once in a great while, like a comet crashing into Jupiter.

OK, so the “crowd” was 32,969 people without a life. OK, so the only good run a Ram made all day was Todd Lyght high-stepping backward into the end zone like a crazed drum major. OK, so quarterback Chris Miller didn’t exactly light up the sky with his six completed passes in 60 minutes of football. The Rams are in first place and Buddy Ryan is in a worse place.

“Winning,” began this very famous head coach who has all of 43 NFL victories, “is the name of the game. The bottom line is that we need to finish the plays, and we didn’t. Our defense didn’t turn the ball over and our offense didn’t score. The referees had us so scared that we were afraid to make a play on defense.”

Say what?

“Our defense played the whole game and didn’t even turn the damn ball over. That’s ridiculous.”

Wow, we’ve heard of players being groggy after games, but this is ridiculous. Not only did Arizona’s defense force a turnover, it forced one on the game’s first play. It forced a Ram turnover 15 seconds into the game. Buddy might want to look into that memory course on TV plugged by Danny Bonaduce.

Further comment from the Budmeister?

Here’s one:

“It looked to me like they (the Rams) were dying and we wouldn’t kill them.”

Buddy, the trouble is, the Cardinals couldn’t kill a roach with a can of Raid. Never could. When the going gets tough, the Cardinals don’t. Steve Beuerlein lofted a pass that led Ricky Proehl like one of those halftime-show guys leads a dog with a Frisbee. Put it right on Ricky’s fingertips. Rams leading, 14-12, but there goes the ballgame. Except the Cardinals couldn’t touch it with a 10-foot Proehl.

Beuerlein blamed Beuerlein.

“You can’t put the onus on other people,” said the Cardinal quarterback, one of several pro gridders who knows what an onus is. “The bottom line is, I didn’t play the way I need to play. All of us need to get better, starting with myself. We dug ourselves in a hole, and, as Buddy said, we can either pick up our skirt and pack it in, or come back next week and play better.”

Say what?

“Ricky makes that play, maybe we win,” Beuerlein continued. “But we had our chances. Look at the passes I didn’t make. I don’t know how many hook patterns I bounced in the dirt. Two to Gary Clark and one to Randall Hill at the least. You could go down the list.”

Oh, some other time.

Anyway, Buddy will probably go down the list at practice. He should be a million laughs. Probably mention how the Cardinals lost to a team that got nine first downs. Probably point out that the Cardinals lost to a team that rushed for 50 yards--52 by Jerome Bettis and minus-two by everybody who isn’t Jerome Bettis. Probably, oh, you know, point out to the Cardinals that they should have slaughtered these Not the Dallas Cowboys.

“It’s a shame to lose a game like that,” Buddy said, jowls a-drooping. “A game we probably should have won. A game I know we should have won.”

That’s ridiculous. Why would anybody expect the Rams to lose to a team like that?