Another Loss, Another Search for Solutions

College buddies that they are, Ram linebacker Kevin Greene and Charger running back Lionel James met for a little heart-to-heart after San Diego’s stunning 38-24 victory Sunday.

Helmets off, emotions opened wide, a weary Greene approached his former Auburn teammate. Greene had but one tackle to show for his day, a third-quarter sack, his first since Oct. 9.

James, meanwhile, had a precious victory.

Rather than console, James chose to ask the questions that sat on the tip of tongues everywhere after a third consecutive Ram loss. Said James:

“What’s up with you guys? You guys got so much talent. You guys should be a great team. You guys should have beat us.”

Greene stared at his shoes. “Yeah, I know,” he said.

Has it come to this--sympathy from the 4-8 Chargers, the same team whose offense was ranked 27th in the league entering Sunday’s game? Do the Rams deserve this sort of indignity?

Yep, said Greene.

“We’ve got to get something together or we’re going down ,” he said. “We’ve got to get our act together or we’re going down. It’s as plain as that.”

Maybe, someone suggested delicately, this was just a case of, well, midseason blues.

“Midseason choke,” snapped Greene. “We’ve choked the last three games. I think we beat ourselves today. We should have whomped on these guys and they whomped on us. I think, like Coach (John Robinson) said, we’ve got to go back to basics. We’ve got to.”

And there you have it. Basics. To the once-proud Ram defense, that means better technique, better reads, better pass rushes, better run defense, better concentration.

But in more practical terms, it means preventing the very things that have crippled the Rams in recent weeks. It means preventing at least a few of those 6 Charger third-down conversions. Or preventing one of 3 long Charger pass completions--2 of them coming on third-down plays--that contributed to 17 San Diego points. Or not getting penalized for pass interference on a third-and-16 situation.

“I think that’s where we really lost the ballgame,” defensive lineman Doug Reed said. “We let them convert on third down.”

Heads hung low in the Ram locker room after the loss, and with good reason. How bad was it? Even the usually talkative and cooperative LeRoy Irvin was nowhere to be found, his dressing stall long since deserted. That may have been related to Irvin’s inability to cover Charger rookie speedster Anthony Miller on--you guessed it--a third and 7 at San Diego’s 36, the Rams trailing only 24-17 early in the fourth quarter.

Instead, Miller dashed past Irvin, who had one-on-one coverage because of a Ram blitz. Forty-nine yards later, Miller had a reception and Irvin had that lonely feeling that is an occupational hazard of all cornerbacks.

But Irvin didn’t lose this game by himself. He had plenty of assistance from the Ram offense and special teams. Still, it was the glaring failure of the defense to stiffen when it counted that will remain heavy on Ram memories this week.

“It seems like we’re a fighting team, that we’re better fighting for our lives than being in a pretty good position,” Reed said.

Good thing, too, since the Rams are now 2 games behind the division-leading New Orleans Saints with only 4 games remaining in the regular season.

“We got to win 4 games, plain and simple,” defensive end Gary Jeter said. “There’s no margin for error.”

At season’s beginning, Jeter took a pen to one of his uniform pads and scrawled the numbers, 11-5 . According to his calculations, that was to be the Ram record.

Before the recent tailspin, Jeter’s preseason prediction would have been met easily, in fact, surpassed. But now this: 3 losses, a team that Robinson said “is hesitant and stumbles and falls at every turn.”

Not to worry, Jeter said. Sort of.

“Now we’re going to have to do it the hard way,” he said.

Hard it will be, what with a schedule that includes the equally fading Denver Broncos in Denver, the Chicago Bears, the fast-improving Atlanta Falcons and those legendary Ram-bashers, the San Francisco 49ers at San Francisco.

First, the Rams need to figure out what went wrong against the undistinguished Chargers. That should be easy, Reed said. Try everything.

“They pretty much did what they wanted to do this ballgame,” he said. “I think their will was stronger than ours. We came out kind of flat.”

And left flatter. That Charger offense, once ranked 27th? Looked fine to Reed.

“Today, they were pretty much a No. 1 offense,” he said.

As solutions go, the Rams are open to suggestions, except maybe the ones that hecklers showered Greene with as he returned to the Ram locker room. Among the legitimate nominees are the obvious:

---- “We have to keep working hard,” linebacker Mike Wilcher said. “We have to stop them from making the long pass.”

---- “I think we played average,” cornerback Jerry Gray said. “When it came time to make big plays, we didn’t. In that category, we played below average. In order to win, you can’t do that.”

Or as the elegant Greene said:

“We’ve got all the tools. We’ve just got to get our brain together.”

Or else Jeter is going to need an eraser. One that removes ink and high expectations.