Rams No Lambs in Victory : Pro Football: Defense has five sacks, four interceptions in 37-14 win over the Cardinals.

Two weeks removed from pro football’s rock pile, the Rams have wiped away the effects of four lost weekends and taken on the league with open scowls and dropped gloves. They cleaned out Phoenix, 37-14, on Sunday with little regard for the Cardinals’ overall physical condition, which remains code blue.

The Cardinals, a team held together by adhesive tape and a Health Maintenance Organization, weren’t up for a fight at Anaheim Stadium, but the Rams weren’t buying sad stories. They have so many of their own to share.

This game was as no-nonsense as the Rams get. They pinned the Cardinals down early on Michael Stewart’s 41-yard interception return for a touchdown less than two minutes into the game and never let up.

It was a clean strike, efficient and bloodless. Quarterback Jim Everett completed 15 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns, an average of 20.5 yards per completion. Two went to Henry Ellard, who had touchdown receptions of 49 yards in the first quarter and 42 yards in the fourth and 163 yards in five catches.

Fullback-tailback Robert Delpino continued his headfirst drive to notoriety, scoring his first rushing touchdown on a 32-yard sprawl-and-dive over the end-zone pylon in the second quarter and accounting for 134 all-purpose yards (rushing-receiving-kick returns).

Delpino is close to making the Rams think he was the only running back they drafted in 1988, although Gaston Green did suit up Sunday to gain nine mop-up yards in three mop-up carries.

And suddenly the Ram defense doesn’t look so bad, sacking three Phoenix quarterbacks five times and intercepting them four times. The secondary had just six interceptions in 10 previous games.

They Rams have nine sacks in their past two games.

The Rams were so tired of their recent fate that common sense sometimes escaped them, most notably when Everett--nicknamed “Blade” for his slight build--gave Cardinals’ defensive end Freddie Joe Nunn (6-4, 260, forearms that resemble anvils) a stern in-your-face lecture late in the third quarter after Nunn rode Everett out of bounds on a scramble.

The amazing thing was that Nunn just stood there and took it, explaining later that he didn’t need a manslaughter charge on his hands.

“It was no match,” Nunn said. “Why waste my time? I might get a penalty. Actually, I kind of enjoyed it. It pumped me up. I was hoping the refs would pull a flag on him. But it’s real hard to take from a quarterback. Real hard. What surprised me was that I took it.”

Everett was relieved that Nunn had more control over his emotions than he did in the situation. You know how easy it is to break a quarterback in two?

“I carried it as far as I ever want to carry it,” Everett said. “You might call me a third-degree idiot.”

Everett thought he was out of bounds when Nunn struck, although it didn’t appear that close on the replay and no penalty was called. Everett was determined to get his point across, though, whatever risks to life and limb.

“I just told him what a nice, cheap hit that was and how much I liked him at that particular time of my life,” Everett said. “It’s heated out there, you’re going 100 m.p.h.. I don’t particularly like it, but it happens.”

Everett, realizing later the logic of his outburst, apologized to Nunn after the game, but he refused to apologize for his style of play.

“I’m not trying to do anything to endanger the team,” he said. “But I will offer my opinion if I think it’s wrong. . .I put myself in a position where the guy wants to kill me the rest of the game. That’s probably not a good deal. But he wants to kill me anyway.”

In one cathartic, throat-clearing outburst, the Rams’ quarterback unloaded a few things from his chest, screaming on behalf of his team, no doubt.

Rams coach John Robinson could only stand back and admire his team’s leader in action.

“If they’d have gone to blows, he’d have been swinging,” Robinson said. “I love that about him. I like the attitude.”

What’s not to like? The Rams were leading, 27-7, at the time, and his starting quarterback was fighting for every yard. Robinson’s defense, an eye-sore through a four-game losing spell, first swallowed up Cardinals’ starting quarterback, Gary Hogeboom, who tossed two interceptions, and then dug into his replacement, Tom Tupa, who was intercepted once and sacked three times, twice on successive plays in the fourth quarter by linebacker Kevin Greene.

Robinson’s left cornerback, Jerry Gray, had his best game in recent memory with two interceptions, setting up a touchdown and field goal. More important, he soothed some painful memories of earlier drops against Buffalo and Minnesota, picks that might have prevented two crippling, last-minute losses.

“Personally, I felt I let the team down,” Gray said. “I think I was feeling it the most, because I had the chance to make some plays and I didn’t.”

Robinson’s wide receiver, Ellard, continued his assault on opposing secondaries and the Ram record book, moving past Tom Fears into third place on the team’s all-time yardage list.

Ellard, on ability alone, turned two medium range passes into long touchdowns.

“He made those touchdowns,” Everett said. “Both of them.”

After the second, a 42-yarder in the fourth quarter to put the Rams up 37-7, Ellard re-introduced his dangerous, end-zone celebrating front-somersault, the same one that put him in hot water with the head coach last season.

This time, Robinson was only critical of the landing, which he said was flawed, in one judge’s opinion.

“And that gets you down from a 9.5 to an 8.6,” he said.

Now, what to do with this Delpino, the fifth-rounder who’s crowding two-first rounders, Green and Cleveland Gary, out of the picture?

On Delpino’s 32-yard scoring run, he burst out of the backfield like a bullet, cutting off right tackle Jackie Slater’s block before blowing full speed down the sidelines, the run ending a face-first dive to the flag. The moment was only dulled by instant replay, which served to delay, then uphold, what seemed a certain score.

“That really made me mad,” said Delpino, who had rehearsed his spike and speech.

Delpino finished with 68 yards, averaging 6.18 yards per carry. This is his third season as a running back, having been converted from receiver as a senior at Missouri, proving it with three catches and 46 yards on Sunday.

Delpino wonders how good he’ll be once he learns the position.

“A lot of guys have been runners all their lives,” he said. “I do have a lot to learn about the position.”

The salary structure, for one. But the Rams’ $90,000 man continues to put serious heat on a backfield loaded with millionaires, one from UCLA in particular.

“Hopefully, it will put more pressure on him (Robinson) to run me more with the ball,” Delpino said.

As quick as a Delpino run, the Rams find themselves back in a divisional race. The Rams, ever mindful of their rivals, San Francisco, had the luxury of scoreboard watching in the fourth-quarter.

Everett, relieved from duty by Mark Herrmann, monitored the Packers’ slim fourth-quarter lead from the sideline, and prepared himself for another heroic Joe Montana comeback.

The Packers’ win was finally made official by the Rams’ public address announcer with 20 seconds left.

“With him,” Everett said of Montana, “You wait for the announcer.”

Two games back with five to go.

Ram Notes

Ron Brown caught his first pass of the season with 12:37 remaining Sunday, a 12-yarder from quarterback Jim Everett. Brown had another 20-yard reception with 10:43 left. . .Rams’ defensive end Doug Reed sprained his left ankle in the first half and did not return. It probably will force Reed out of next week’s game in New Orleans . . . Linebacker George Bethune suffered a concussion. There were no other serious Ram injuries . . . Mike Lansford kicked three more field goals Sunday and has now made 17 of 20 attempts for the season . . .