Big Play Eludes Rams Again, 13-10 : Pro football: They fail to score on last possession and lose to the Saints.

NEW ORLEANS —  One more time Sunday night, the Rams took a talented, battle-tested football team kicking and screaming into a fourth-quarter free-for-all.

And one more time, the Rams (2-4) blinked.

One more time, they were one play away from the kind of victory measured in the standings, not the post-game locker room explanations.

This time, it was the New Orleans Saints (4-2) who were pushed to the limit, scoring a 13-10 victory with a key 34-yard punt return, two crucial fourth-quarter defensive stands, and Morten Andersen’s game-winning 30-yard field goal with less than four minutes before an announced Superdome crowd of 68,591.

Last week, it was the San Francisco 49ers who edged the Rams in the final moments.

After that game, the Rams talked about the confidence gained by slugging it out with a Super Bowl contender. Sunday night, they said the same things, mentioned the same sense of improvement, discussed the same need to make the big play in tight games.

And one of these days, the Rams calmly said over and over, theywill actually win one of them.

“We will,” quarterback Jim Everett said. “We have faith in this team. Our defense is playing a lot better, our offense is playing well.

“We played against a very, very tough defense, one of the best in the NFL. And we expected just the type of game we got. We were in the fourth quarter and within striking distance, and we just didn’t do it.”

With the score 10-10 during the fourth quarter, the Ram defense gave its offense two chances to pull ahead against a defense that sacked Everett four times and gave up only 42 yards of rushing.

The first chance ended when Everett, looking for Flipper Anderson deep down the left sideline, threw an interception to safety Gene Atkins.

The second was halted by Rickey Jackson’s third sack of Everett and the Rams’ inability to convert on the resulting third and 24.

“Whenever (Everett) has the ball, with his receivers, with him slinging it, you just don’t feel comfortable,” Saint Coach Jim Mora said. “I’ve seen him do it so many times against us. But we made some critical plays at the end of the game.”

On the ensuing Don Bracken punt, the Saints’ Marcus Dowdell slipped through the Ram coverage for 34 yards to the Ram 37-yard line. Six plays later, Andersen kicked a 30-yard field goal, and it was 13-10 with the Saints ready to stop the Rams one more time.

In three quick plays--two incompletions and a sack--they did so.

“We were in it until the end,” Ram Coach Chuck Knox said. “It’s not like it was a rout or anything like that. We came back . . . if we can make a play here, a play there, we would have a chance to win it.

“But the Saints had something to say about that.”

Said Ram linebacker Kevin Greene: “Something’s going to turn. We’re just going to keep playing hard. We’re playing hard.

“I just feel this team is getting better. We keep playing like we did today, just come out with fewer mistakes, we’re going to be contenders. This team is close to doing something.”

Said Everett: “We’re a tough-hitting team, and we played against a tough-hitting team.”

This was a game that began, as almost every Ram game does, looking like a blowout. The Rams, who now have been outscored by 48-0 in the first quarters of this year’s six games, gave up an easy touchdown on the first possession of the game.

The Saints went into the game without having scored a touchdown on their first possession all season. This time, they drove 84 yards on 12 plays and scored on a five-yard pass from quarterback Bobby Hebert to Eric Martin.

But the Rams, as has been their pattern, settled down.

With the Saints about to score during the second quarter, Hebert threw a flutter pass to tight end Hoby Brenner at the goal line. He could only tip it straight to linebacker Leon White, who ran to the Ram 39. That set up a 30-yard Tony Zendejas field goal that made the score 7-3.

In the middle of the third quarter, the Rams put together their best drive of the game, 13 plays and 75 yards, culminating on Cleveland Gary’s one-yard touchdown run.

That made the score 10-10 and set the stage for the fourth-quarter fight.

“I think the guys hung in there and kept fighting offensively and defensively right up until the end,” said right tackle Jackie Slater, who conceded that Jackson got the better of him. “That’s what we want to be all about.

“We want to be a team that plays the whole game, plays well the whole game, and get ourselves a chance to win it at the end.

“When it was 10-10 in the fourth quarter, in light of the some of the things that had gone on through the football game, we were sitting right there with a chance to make some plays and win the game as the clock was running out. We just didn’t make the plays.”

Ram Notes

With his third catch of the night, receiver Henry Ellard got his 500th reception. It came on an 18-yarder during the third quarter. Ellard finished with five catches for 89 yards on the night. . . . The only Ram listed as injured after the game was free safety Pat Terrell (hip pointer). . . . Everett was 11 of 20 for 165 yards and threw one interception.

The Rams lost the opening coin toss for the sixth consecutive time Sunday night. They have kicked off in each of their six games this season.