COMMENTARY : And so They Leave, With a Whimper, Not a Bang

Last play in Los Angeles Ram history, barring divine or NFL-sanctioned intervention: Heath Shuler, rookie quarterback for the 3-13 Washington Redskins, drops his knee to the Anaheim Stadium turf, pinning the Rams for the final count, 24-21.

One more trip through the north tunnel, bastion of the Melonheads and the staunchest die-hards, awaited them on the road to St. Louis.

Two fans held aloft large blue-and-gold satin banners adorned with the Rams crest, the drooping flags of a beaten army.

A dozen others wore T-shirts that declared:

WIN OR LOSE

STAY OR MOVE

RAM FANS FOREVER

A man dressed in a Santa suit draped a banner over the railing in the end zone, a Christmas list that requested a Ram victory, a Ram game ball, a Ram jersey and the “Rams To Stay In L.A.--Please! (signed) A True Rams Fan.”

Then, the chanting began.

“L.A. Rams!” “L.A. Rams!”

Then the chanting turned mean:

“Georgia (expletive)!”

“Georgia (expletive)!”

This was followed by varieties on the theme:

“John Shaw (expletive)!”

And, over and over, for more than five ear-splitting minutes:

“St. Louis (expletive)!”

Nobody cares if the Rams stay or go, right?

“Those fans are always great,” safety Anthony Newman said. “They are the all-time greatest fans. They’re always there, they’re always there for us.

“I wouldn’t trade them for the world.”

Last song played by the Los Angeles Rams’ band: “Auld Lang Syne,” 3 1/2 minutes after running through a few verses of “St. Louis Woman.”

Jackie Slater, the veteran offensive tackle who has spent 19 seasons with the Rams, long enough to remember when Chuck Knox coached Ram teams into the playoffs instead of the first five in the NFL draft, weaved slowly through the tunnel, slapping hands with fans who called him over on a first-name basis.

“My emotions right now are just kind of out-of-kilter, I guess,” Slater said as he pulled off his blue jersey for possibly the final time, be it here or Missouri.

He spoke proudly of the Rams’ 15 years in Anaheim.

“Some of the greatest football ever played was played by the men who sat here in this locker room,” Slater said.

He spoke fondly of the fans who “gave me as much respect and support as any football player could have. . . . I’m committed to the fact that there are people in Southern California who love the Rams and are completely devoted to the Rams.”

He spoke ominously of any decision to ship the franchise to St. Louis.

“Southern California without the Rams is something you really have to give a lot of thought to before you actually do it,” he said.

Last touchdown scored by a Los Angeles Ram: Thirty-six yard pass from Chris Miller to Jermaine Ross, a rookie free-agent wide receiver making his first NFL catch four seconds before halftime, giving the Rams a 21-17 lead, which they would squander like so many others.

If this is truly it, the Los Angeles-Anaheim era of Ram football will end with seven consecutive losses (the franchise record is 12) and five consecutive losing seasons (the franchise record is seven).

Since 1991, Ram victory totals have dropped from six to five to four, dragging Ram home attendance figures down with them. Saturday’s in-house crowd count--25,705--was not only the smallest since the team moved to Orange County in 1980, it was 4,500 less than the Mater Dei-Los Alamitos high school playoff game held earlier this month.

“I can’t blame the fans,” said tailback Jerome Bettis, who rushed for 48 yards, giving him 1,025 for the season. “What are they supposed to do, keep coming to watch the same thing over and over?

“You’ve got to put a quality product on the field. I don’t fault the fans. I fault us for not winning enough ballgames.”

Last postgame cliche uttered by Chuck Knox: “We didn’t get it done. That says it all. I say ‘we’ in terms of my coaches, players, everybody.”

Never expansive even in the best of times, Knox ran through his final postgame press briefing in less than three minutes.

What was there to say? Hired in 1992 to turn the franchise around, or at the very least, keep it put in Anaheim, Knox watched the victories and the turnstiles melt away at a similar pace.

In three years of Knox II, the Rams went from 6-10 to 5-11 to 4-12 and the beds of a fleet of moving vans.

Mix a 10-6, or even a 9-7, in there and do those vans ever get out of the garage?

Last homemade banner unfurled at a Los Angeles Ram home game: “GEORGIA IS THE GRINCH,” making its appearance with 2:41 to go, coming on the heels of “BITTER TO THE END” and “LEIGH SAVE OUR RAMS.”

Rubbing salt in fresh wounds, a television crew from St. Louis made the rounds in the Ram locker room, baiting the players with questions about how much fun it’s going to be playing inside a state-of-the-art $258-million grid dome, in front of 70,000 screaming fans “ready to embrace you.”

Newman told the St. Louis man with the microphone, “It’s nice, it’s nice. We don’t have that here. But I like grass. And I like Southern California. Everybody wants to play in the sunshine in December on grass--and not having to think about leaving.”

Bettis shrugged and said, “We’re players, we have to go where we’re paid. It’s just so sad. There’s nothing we can do.”

Not on the field the last four months, and certainly not now.

“You don’t want to leave some place with a sour taste in your mouth,” Bettis said as he watched trunks of equipment being wheeled out of the room, headed for who knows where.

“I wanted to go out with a bang. I’m so sorry we couldn’t do that.”