Just half bad

~ St. Louis has outscored opponents by 12 points in the first half, but have been outscored by 141 points in the second half.

ST. LOUIS -- The St. Louis Rams' 11th loss was a lot like the other 10. They can play with anybody in the NFL, at least for a while.

After trading touchdowns with the Green Bay Packers in the first half of Sunday's 33-14 loss, the Rams (3-11) were undone by critical mistakes, missed opportunities and poor special teams play. It's a bumpy road they've traveled numerous times.

The Rams have outscored their opponents 144-132 in the first half. The second half has been a horror show, with the opposition outscoring them 217-76. The fourth quarter is especially lopsided at 120-40.

Solutions to the problem keep eluding the coaching staff.

"Hopefully we can find out in the offseason, so we can turn this thing around," running back Steven Jackson said. "Because we have too much talent in this locker room to be losing games."

The Rams have found ways to lose almost all the close ones. They've had three halftime leads that fizzled against the Panthers, 49ers and Seahawks. They've been close in almost every loss at the break, trailing the Bucs 3-0, the Cowboys 14-7, the Chargers 10-3 and the Cardinals 17-13, and hitting halftime tied at 17-17 with the Browns. The Bucs, Cowboys and Chargers all ended up with blowout victories, the Browns won by seven and the Cardinals prevailed by three.

St. Louis had the ball for nearly 14 minutes in the third quarter against the Packers, yet got outscored 10-0. That's the way it's gone.

The game began to unravel near the end of the first half when the Rams, trailing 17-14, appeared poised to tie it or take the lead. Drew Bennett bobbled an easy catch at the Green Bay 22 with room to run, and it went right into the arms of Atari Bigby for an interception.

O.J. Atogwe picked off Brett Favre at the St. Louis 6 with 23 seconds to go to keep the Packers from capitalizing, but the Rams' missed opportunity stung more. Another catchable pass deflected off Torry Holt's hands and right to Bigby again to short-circuit the Rams' first possession of the second half, leading to a field goal that put the Packers ahead 20-14.

The Packers put the Rams in catch-up mode when Favre beat the blitz and miscommunication in the secondary left Greg Jennings wide open for a 44-yard touchdown pass with about six minutes to go in the third quarter. Ron Bartell tried to switch coverages with Atogwe, and both players ended up covering Donald Driver.

It was probably the play of the game.

"It was a shame, because it gave up a play that should have never, never happened," defensive coordinator Jim Haslett said. "They were both wrong. It's never going to happen again because I'm not going to let them do it again."

That score took Jackson, who had 103 yards on 13 carries in the first half, out of the picture. Jackson finished with 143 yards on 24 carries, his first 100-yard game since Week 3, but had no carries in the fourth quarter.

"They truly didn't stop the run," Jackson said. "They got ahead and that means more passing."

Shoddy special teams play enabled the Packers, who were outgained 364 to 279, to win going away. Koren Robinson had three kickoff returns for a 43.3-yard average to provide short fields.

"At the beginning of the week we talked about our special teams playing better than their special teams," Packers running back Ryan Grant said. "All day, our special teams did a great job of giving us the ball in great field position and allowing us to put up points fast."

The Rams are last in the NFL in kickoff coverage. The Packers' average starting point after the kickoff was the 48, while the Rams started at the 17.