Rams Go Unseen, Unheard

“Cold turkey” used to be slang for any Ram football player making the trip to Green Bay, but that all changed Sunday for the proud, the few, the masochistic, the 31% of Southern California television viewers who voted for Rams-at-Packers over 49ers-at-Saints and were told, “Sorry, you lose again.”

Because 69% beats 31% every time, Fox blacked out the first game in St. Louis Rams’ history locally and aired Steve Young versus Jim Everett instead.

The results of the vote indicated two things:

1. Most Southern Californians would rather watch one former Los Angeles Ram than 47 of them.

2. If you were in the minority, and you had no stomach for sports bar hot wings and chili at 10 in the morning, you were forced to do without.

This kind of treatment is unnecessarily cruel, even by Ram standards.

Just how low does the L.A. Ram fan rank on the societal ladder? Even heroin junkies receive a few rounds of methadone. Chain smokers get their boxes of Chiclets. And the Ram fan living in Cypress or Garden Grove? What does he or she get?

No TV.

No radio.

No Deacon Jones doing to the English language what he used to do to NFL quarterbacks.

No nothing, to paraphrase the Deacon.

The message from the networks is obvious: Get on with your lives already. Think like Cleveland Gary carrying a football. Let it go.

Easy for them to say.

Withdrawal can be a bear, especially when you’ve spent the last five years beating your head with a brick every autumn Sunday and have kind of gotten used to the feeling. Withdrawal has to begin slowly, carefully, patiently.

Ram fans, here is your first nicotine patch:

Chris Miller update: Sacked five times by the Packers, no concussions.

Jerome Bettis update: Seven carries for four yards, which, interestingly enough, works out to the same 20.57 inches-per-attempt average Bettis maintained during the last seven games of the 1994 season.

Jessie Hester update: Three catches, 26 yards, no touchdowns, no gain of any real consequence, but the streak lives on , now at 79.

Sean Landeta update: Nine punts, 45-yard average, lots of lift, lots of work, got in more running than Bettis.

Tony Zendejas update: Uh, he’s been cut.

Troy Drayton update: Big plans for the lad this year, new head coach, new offensive coordinator, new tight end-friendly passing offense, St. Louis, you’re going to love him, he’s the new Jackie Smith. Three catches, 13 yards.

Todd Lyght update: Beaten by Brett Favre for a touchdown in the final two minutes.

Wayne Gandy update: Backs into Bettis early in the second quarter, inadvertently tackles him at the line of scrimmage.

Sounds about right.

Anything else?

Just this:

Rams 17, Packers 14.

So this is what happens when you take the Rams out of Orange County and reseed them in Midwestern soil? More likely, this is what happens when you take Sterling Sharpe and Ken Ruettgers out of the Green Bay lineup. Without his favorite target and his blind-side bodyguard, Favre looked like Tommy Maddox in green and gold--firing three interceptions and 22 incompletions, getting sacked four times for 43 yards in losses and producing no points in the first two quarters, the first time the Packers have been shut out in a half in 42 games.

The St. Louis Rams are undefeated. You can almost hear John Shaw cackling halfway across the country. Rich Brooks is 1-0. St. Louis is tied with San Francisco. D’Marco Farr is the toast of Missouri. And Orange County is left with a ninth consecutive Angel defeat to stew over.

Theoretically, this could be perceived as a dark day for Anaheim. Team leaves town, team vaults into playoff contention.

Except . . .

The last Rams of Anaheim also won their season opener--14-12 over Arizona. Remember that one--the game that was supposed to save Chuck Knox’s career and, possibly, the franchise?

The last Rams of Anaheim went from 1-0 on that first grandiose Sunday of 1994 to 4-12 by the last dreary weekend of December, eventually taking a seven-game losing streak and a new coaching staff with them to St. Louis.

Next week, the Rams play their first regular-season game in St. Louis when they play host to New Orleans, which means the game will be trumped up as the dramatic return of Jim Everett, except that Everett never played in St. Louis, so maybe it will be trumped up as the dramatic first time through for Everett--the “Fancy Meeting You Here Bowl”--but rest assured, it will be trumped up. The Super Bowl? A mere out-of-town exhibition compared to this one.

Meanwhile, back in Southern California, fans will try to stay informed.

A short-wave radio could be the way to go.