St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 11

3 NOV 131995 Salato 17 Raiders ..17 Bills 23 34 Bengals ..32 Seahawks.47 Lions ....27 Packers ..35 22 30 Colts 14 Giants 13 Falcons 17 17 25 30 Bucs ....24 28 Chargers 7 20 Cardinals .24 ST.LDLIBPOST-DISRflTCH WI I- V. IS MV, It "JF J- OFF 5 -J RICARDO RHODES LEADS r4 COWBOYS Page 6C ZELWOOD at 4 EAS -mwmm- MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1995 Page 3C if Punching-Bag Panthers Are Decked a In The Dome mirmexmm.im vmsmmwm'r iwmmjmm mw mwwmmmimw'mmvy By Jim Thomas Of th Post-Oispatch Staff All the vital signs were much-improved, Jerome Bettis' rushing yardage up. Ninety-one yards. Defensive pressure way up. Three sacks.

Six turnovers. One defensive TD. Red-zone efficiency up, up, up. Three trips inside the 20. Three touchdowns.

Energized by a jolt of Vitamin that's as in St. Louis and Slater the Rams have been taken off the critical list, thanks to Sunday's 28-17 victory over the Carolina Panthers. "We needed to stop the bleeding," quarterback Chris Miller said. "We had a three-game losing streak going, and two of them we felt we could have won. It was important for us just to get back in the hunt." Back in the hunt they are.

At 6-4, the Rams are in a three-way tie for first in the NFC West with Atlanta and San Francisco, And guess who they play in the next two weeks? Yep. At Atlanta next Sunday. At San Francisco on Nov. 26. What we've got here is your basic pennant race.

"I think this showed some maturity for the guys to step up now and say, 'Hey, it's time to defensive end Fred Stokes said. "If we weren't going to win Sunday, we might as well forget any hopes of the playoffs." A loss to Carolina would have evened the Rams' record at 5-5. Four losses in a row. With three consecutive road games looming, you could have played taps on the 1995 season. "This was a real gut-check for us if we wanted to be a factor," coach Rich Brooks said.

"The win was extremely important to a young football team that got off to a fast start, had a lot of heady things happen to them, got a lot of national publicity, and then all of a sudden we're being called 'same old "Believe me, this is not '94 or '93; this is the '95 St. Louis Rams. Even though we're young and we're still not as efficient and proficient as we need to be, I still think this is a team on the rise." The Rams certainly got a rise out of the new Trans World Dome, filled to the brim with 65,598 fans a record for a professional sporting event in St, Louis. "It was scary coming out," defensive end D'Marco Farr said. "The lights and the smoke.

I forgot we were home for a minute." The Rams ran out of the tunnel for pregame introductions through a cloud of smoke. It was enough to make Farr, a pro wrestling aficionado, think of his idol, Hulk Hogan. "I wish I had my championship belt," Farr joked. "It would have been perfect. I would have grabbed somebody and tried to put them in a figure four." See RAMS, Page 9 inni liiiim 'fii i'lViiiiViiiirVViiiiiYM ii ihMi'iiiitiii iiinii i niiini twin Vi'iiiiiwiii iiiBiiiiWti i I g'Maw8at'feB yrj mm.m iinr.l.-n l.

ForbesPost-Dispatch Jerome Bettis (36) scores the first touchdown at the Trans World Dome on a 1-yard run Sunday. The view Is from a catwalk above the field. Rams Are At Home In The Dome In New House, Rams Find Their Old Form THE GAME1 1 OK, so it wasn't pretty. There is still too much of the old Los Angeles in these St. Louis Rams, and it's going to take more than a $280 million stadium, a Brinks truck, 66,000 delirious fans, Georgia Frontiere's ly quiet as the kid quarterback kept slinging those rocks and bruising the Rams' defense.

"It was the sword and the bull," Rams defensive D'Marco Farr said. "We had seven, eight swords in him, New Facility, Fans Get Passing Grades On Their First Test By Mike Eisenbath Of the Post-Dispatch Staff Dana Howard saw the Trans World Dome. He heard it. He felt it. He wore a St.

Louis Rams uniform Sunday and ran all over the Dome's football field a few times during a 28-17 victory over the Carolina Panthers. But for a guy who grew up in East St. Louis, the experience felt a bit surreal. "Like something out of the Twilight Zone," Howard said. "When I think about pro football in St.

Louis, I wasn't really thinking about a facility like this." Perhaps the same held true for most of the 65,598 fans who watched Sunday's Dome opener. As for the rest of the Rams, the game felt a little more like spending the first night in a new house. All the comforts of home are there, but the excitement included a dose of confusion and discovery of an imperfection or two. "It feels like home finally," receiver Todd Kinchen said. "All the shifting and moving about we've See DOME, Page 9 smile and a change-of-ad-dress card to make them a winner.

And so the expansion Carolina Panthers strutted into the Trans World Dome on Sunday and, to no one's surprise, refused to be a homecoming-game patsy. The Panthers made the Rams sweat. The rookie quarterback, Kerry Collins, stood tall in the pocket. He wouldn't go quietly. Collins had the Rams retreating with his strange but effective slingshot throwing and he wouldn die.

So we had to stick him with more swords." The Rams prevailed 28-17 as Collins finally blew himself up. He turned the ball over six times. Two lost fumbles, threw four interceptions. Five turnovers in the second half. Four turnovers in the fourth quarter.

Collins was a slot machine; he kept spitting out payoffs, The Rams got fat on Collins' largesse, scoring Panthers' Collins Looks Like A Rookie With Costly Mistakes 7 Bettis Leads Rams' Attack On The Ground 7 Wiegert Finally Gets Chance To Start On Offensive Line 7 Jeff Gordon: Sights Sounds From Dome OpenerS Panthers-Rams Game Summary 9 NFL Report: Marino Sets Record, But Dolphins Lose 6 i BERNIE MIKLASZ 21 points after his giveaways. Collins will be a great National Football League quarterback one day. On this day, he couldn't survive all his mistakes. So the Rams did their part to make this a merry housewarming: They tapped into the enthusiasm See MIKLASZ, Page 9 motion. Early in the second half, the Panthers trailed 14-10 and were gaining momentum.

It was enough tension to make 65,598 Rams fans squirm as they sat on their PSLs. Was there much at stake? Only the fiJte of the Rams' entire season. And the TWA Dome was becoming awful- J.B. ForbesPost-Dispatch The Rams', including Clarence Jones and Dexter Davis, take the field to play Carolina on Sunday at the Trans World Dome..