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This Matchup Wilts in Desert

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There has probably been an uglier game in the history of the NFL, but you’d have to spend a year in the NFL Films vault to find it.

The sordid details of Sunday’s St. Louis Ram-Arizona Cardinal game included fans throwing bottles on the field, sloppy attire and the most unlikable team in the league winning on an anticlimactic, 10-second clock runoff .

The Rams defeated their city’s former team and their former quarterback, 17-12. I don’t see how anyone can be happy when a team owned by Georgia Frontiere, coached by Mike Martz and using the drunk-driving Leonard Little wins. And apparently the members of the organization don’t even like each other, judging by the message reportedly left on a St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist’s voice mail last week in which one team executive threatened to slash a colleague’s throat.

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A few years ago they were at least interesting to watch with a spectacular offense and the bags-to-riches story of Kurt Warner. Now Warner’s in Arizona, looking more like a has-been than a hero, and the Rams are looking like just another play-it-safe NFL team.

(Speaking of looks, that untucked shirt thing doesn’t work for Martz. Why can’t the NFL’s stringent uniform regulations apply to coaches? When it comes to sloppy sideline appearances, Martz is like Bill Belichick -- only without the dynasty. At least Martz cleaned up well, donning a dark blue suit after the game.)

Quarterback Marc Bulger said the Rams’ playbook is more complex than ever and loaded with downfield pass routes. But Martz seems a little less insistent on always doing things his way. They threw for only 216 yards Sunday, and when the Rams had a second and one on the Arizona seven, instead of trying a pass Martz did the sensible thing and gave the ball to Steven Jackson, who juked safety Adrian Wilson and trotted into the end zone.

Apparently Jackson is a little more style-conscious than Martz.

“I’m trying to get away from being known as that downhill, bullish-type runner,” Jackson said. “I do want to open it up and make guys miss in the open field, and today I think I showed that.”

If only the rest of the game could have been as aesthetically pleasing. On one exchange, Warner lost the ball while trying to pass, and on the next play Jackson bobbled a shovel pass and Arizona’s Darnell Dockett collected it for an interception.

The Rams had a 51-yard punt return called back for a variety of infractions. With flags dotting the field like traffic cones, referee Jeff Triplette rattled off the illegal-blocking offenders.

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“No. 27, that penalty is declined. No. 58, that penalty is declined. No. 33, that penalty is accepted.”

The Cardinal fans cheered that announcement, but in the fourth quarter they turned into an angry mob when Arizona offensive tackle Leonard Davis was called for unnecessary roughness for clubbing free safety Michael Hawthorne after a play.

Davis really should have been ejected. What he did was worse than the pregame tiff between Jeremiah Trotter of Philadelphia and Kevin Mathis of Atlanta a week ago that led to both players’ being sent to the locker room. (I loved how the official threw a penalty flag as he was breaking up the players. Who knew officials could call penalties outside of a game? Does this mean they can throw the flag on a minivan bogging down the fast lane, or an obnoxiously loud guy chatting on his cellphone in the airplane seat next to them?)

The officials should have had the authority to clear out the bleachers behind the south end zone in Sun Devil Stadium when people began throwing water bottles and even a pizza box onto the field after the Davis penalty call.

“That’s unfortunate,” Ram safety Adam Archuleta said. “I don’t think there’s any place for that.”

“I don’t know if they were frustrated with us or with the referees or what it was,” said Warner, whose Cardinals dropped to 0-2. “I think they are frustrated like we are.”

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The Rams are relieved that they at least salvaged a split of two road games to open the season. Jackson looked good and so did the defense Sunday, but after losing to San Francisco in Week 1 the Rams are like a man in an orange suit; after that first impression, it’s hard to take anything they do seriously.

Meanwhile, it’s time to silence all of that “Cardinals will be this year’s surprise team” talk we heard in the preseason. They’re 0-2, have gaping holes in their special teams play and some questionable game management.

This one was setting up for a storybook finish, with Warner directing a last-minute drive for a game-winning score to beat the team he led to two Super Bowls. But this game didn’t deserve such a nice, heartwarming ending. So instead it concluded with a whimper, with disorganization, a bad decision and a misstep by the Cardinals, followed by a quick officials’ huddle and decision.

Arizona’s offense, unable to reach the end zone all day, finally came alive in the last two minutes and moved 81 yards to get to first and goal at the five. Then Archuleta sacked Warner for a five-yard loss with about 15 seconds remaining. Instead of spiking the ball and giving his team a couple of cracks at a touchdown, Warner tried to call a play as the seconds dwindled. Once the Cardinals finally got into formation and snapped the ball, Davis was called for a false start with seven seconds remaining.

Because the penalty came with the clock moving in the final minute and the offensive team had no timeouts, there was a mandatory 10-second runoff.

“It’s always tough not to be able to decide it yourself one way or the other, having a penalty finish out the game,” Warner said. “But on the other hand it was kind of fitting with how the rest of the game went.”

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Maybe it was best for everyone involved not to prolong it.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.

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