Can Rams Be Stopped?

San Francisco 49er quarterback Jeff Garcia is headed for his second Pro Bowl, holds a bunch of 49er records, and, who knows, might be playing New England in the Super Bowl on Sunday if not for that nasty four-letter word:

Rams.

Six times he has played them. Six times he has lost.

“If you want to know how to beat them,” he said, “you’ve got to ask somebody who came before me.”

OK, how about New Orleans Saint quarterback Aaron Brooks? The Saints have beaten the Rams in three of their last five meetings. Brooks’ suggestion is easy to say, hard to do: score, score and score some more.

“You’ve got to put points on the board,” he said. “Whether they’re playing on turf or grass, they’re still the best offense in the league. You’ve got to put 30-plus points on the board. If you don’t, forget about it.”

The Patriots should be capable of that, right? They scored at least 34 points four times this season. Marcellus Wiley, a Pro Bowl defensive end for San Diego, is familiar with what New England can do. His team lost to the Patriots in Week 4, and Wiley is a true believer in the capabilities of quarterback Tom Brady.

But ...

“This ain’t Pop Warner, baby,” he said. “They’re going to the Super Bowl and they’re playing the Rams. This is a whole different world. They’re in trouble. They’re in deep trouble.”

Then again, few people thought the Patriots had a chance to beat Pittsburgh. At the beginning of the season, some oddsmakers put New England’s chances of winning the Super Bowl at 10,000-1--and that was before the 1-3 start and Drew Bledsoe’s injury. So anything can happen.

Five things the Patriots need to do to improve their odds:

* Avoid a first-quarter turnover.

The Ram defense is scorching hot after great games against Green Bay and Philadelphia, and both of those included touchdowns off early miscues. Early in the first quarter against the Packers, Brett Favre threw a pass directly into the hands of cornerback Aeneas Williams, who returned it for a touchdown. A week later, two plays into the Philadelphia game, Donovan McNabb fumbled while scrambling away from pressure. The Rams recovered at the Eagle 21 and scored a touchdown five plays later.

When there’s blood in the water, St. Louis can smell it. When the Patriots played St. Louis in the regular season, they turned over the ball on their first series and the Rams converted it into a touchdown.

“If you make a mistake on them,” Coach Bill Belichick said, “they’re going to make you pay for it.”

* Attack the Rams’ two-deep zone.

The key is to put pressure on safeties Kim Herring and Adam Archuleta, the last line of defense, who cover the deeper regions of the field. One way to do that is by establishing the run. But that’s no simple task against a defense that hasn’t allowed a 100-yard rusher this season.

Middle linebacker London Fletcher plays so deep, he’s almost a third safety, and he’s usually in perfect position to play deep routes over the middle. The cornerbacks do a great job of forcing the receivers wide before essentially handing them off to the safeties. That requires an opposing quarterback to be extremely precise with his passes, squeezing them into ultra-tight spots.

Swing passes and dump offs to running backs? That’s playing right into the Rams’ hands.

“The thing that a lot of people don’t realize is we want people to try to dink and dunk all the way down the field,” defensive end Chidi Ahanotu said. “That’s what this defense is built for. It’s like, here’s your two yards, here’s your three yards. We know along the way you’ll get a shot in the ribs, you’ll get a shot in the chin, you’ll fumble the ball.”

* Make a big play on special teams. The Raiders will never forget those Adam Vinatieri field goals that knifed through that Foxboro blizzard and straight into their hearts. And Troy Brown’s punt return for a touchdown was a turning-point play in the victory over the Steelers.

The St. Louis kickoff coverage unit is one of the team’s few soft spots, ranking 30th in the league during the regular season. Against Philadelphia, the Rams gave up a 41-yard kickoff return to Brian Mitchell while trying to protect a 29-17 lead. That return led to an Eagle touchdown and was a big reason the visitors had a chance down the stretch.

* Do something, anything to disrupt Kurt Warner.

If, as some people insist, Belichick is a defensive genius, this is a good test of his abilities. Do the Patriots try to blitz Warner in hopes of keeping Marshall Faulk back as a blocker? The Eagles tried that--although they didn’t blitz nearly as much as usual--and they barely touched the quarterback.

Do you assign a spy to shadow Faulk? The Rams have too many other places they can go with the ball. (Besides, there isn’t a linebacker or safety in the league who can cover Faulk.)

Saint defensive coordinator Rick Venturi said Warner throws the second-level pass--the 20- to 25-yard ins, corners and comebacks--better than anyone. He gets rid of the ball quickly, before his receivers are out of their breaks.

“His anticipation is tremendous,” Venturi told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “I was yelling at the safety during the game and when I went back and looked at the film there was no way he could have broken on it.”

One thing the Patriots will do is try to disrupt and re-route Ram receivers at the line of scrimmage, something they did well in the first game.

“It was press coverage pretty much the whole day,” receiver Isaac Bruce recalled. “I don’t know how much more physical they could be without being offsides. They were up in our face, trying to jack us around. They hit hard.”

* Don’t give up on the run.

Ram Coach Mike Martz says there are a lot of similarities between his offense and the old Buffalo Bill “K-Gun” with Jim Kelly at quarterback. The New York Giants beat those Bills in Super Bowl XXV by grinding it out on the ground and controlling the clock.

A key for the Patriots will be Antowain Smith, who is a great short-yardage runner and has enough speed to pop outside from time to time. He’s a good blocker too, which is vital considering Brady probably won’t be quite as mobile because of his sprained left ankle.

Keep it on the ground and keep St. Louis grounded.

“It sounds nice,” Garcia said. “But it’s really hard to do.”

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