ST. LOUIS -- With a minute left in their 42-20 victory over San Francisco, the St. Louis Rams reached the 49ers' 1-yard-line.

	Dick Vermeil and the Rams have given their fans plenty of reasons to celebrate.

Rams coach Dick Vermeil ordered backup quarterback Paul Justin to take a knee. Twice.

"Boooo!" went the fans.

Big problem.

The Rams are the NFL's only unbeaten team. St. Louis fans are so unused to winning -- they had the Cardinals before they got the Rams -- that they don't know the etiquette for winning.

"Hey, those coaches over there on the other side are my friends," Vermeil said after the game Sunday. "Besides, we have to play them again. You don't want to make enemies by running it up."

Running it up indeed. It had been 17 games and almost nine years since the Rams -- both Anaheim and St. Louis varieties -- had beaten San Francisco. Yes, San Francisco beat them with Joe Montana and Steve Young, but they also beat them with Elvis Grbac and Jim Druckenmiller.

And if Vermeil suggested last week that nobody thought much about the streak, he belied that after the game, hugging owner Georgia Frontiere, and talking openly about it.

So did his players.

"I've been waiting my entire career to watch our team take a knee against that team," said defensive tackle D'Marco Farr, 0-10 against the 49ers entering Sunday's game and knowing NFL etiquette better than his fans.

"It's by far the biggest win of my career," said cornerback Todd Lyght, who was 0-16 against the 49ers until Sunday. Then, there was the man who thinks of himself as Mentor of All Football Coaches, San Francisco general manager Bill Walsh.

He walked into Vermeil's news conference and hugged the St. Louis coach, who indeed is a Walsh protégé. "You're going all the way," Walsh told him and Vermeil blanched.

"Don't say that," Vermeil said.

In fact, why not? In a league that's finally achieved total parity (after all, the Eagles and Bengals won Sunday) why can't the Rams be this year's Falcons?

Vermeil has a quarterback in Kurt Warner, who is "Field of Dreams" reincarnated in a football uniform -- he was Gateway Conference Player of the year at Northern Iowa and starred for the Arena League's Iowa Barnstormers.

He was cut by the Packers, cut by the Bears, then made the Rams last year by beating out the well-traveled Will Furrer for the third-string spot behind Tony Banks and Steve Bono. He moved up to backup when Trent Green, the Rams' $16 million offseason acquisition, tore up his knee in the third exhibition game.

"I figured he'd come along by midseason," Vermeil acknowledged. "I thought until then that the rest of the team would carry him."

Uh ...

Sorry.

Warner threw five touchdown passes Sunday, four to Isaac Bruce, who, finally healthy, looked as good as the 49ers' No. 80, a guy named Jerry Rice. Warner has 14 TD tosses in four games -- a pace that would give him 56 for the season or eight more than the record set by Dan Marino in 1984.

OK, let's get serious.

At some point, Warner will hit a wall _ maybe next week in Atlanta, where the Rams' old coach, Rich Brooks, is the Falcons defensive coordinator. They've already seen Warner and lost to him 35-7.

Then the help has to kick in. And yes, there's talent.

Only eight players remain from the team Vermeil took over at the start of the 1997 season. And Bruce, who might be the NFL's best receiver, has trouble staying healthy -- he missed most of the last two seasons with various nagging injuries.

The offensive line that caused the Rams so much trouble during 5-11 and 4-12 seasons under Vermeil? That's been bolstered by free-agent guard Adam Timmerman and by Orlando Pace, the No. 1 overall pick in 1997 coming into his own at left tackle. And Marshall Faulk has done little yet because they let Warner throw.

"The 4-yard gain is overrated. Sid Gillman told me that," Vermeil said of the man whom even Walsh admits was a mentor. "Why get 4 yards when you can get 40?"

The defense?

It's anchored by veterans like Farr and Lyght, has an emerging star in end Kevin Carter, another No. 1 pick lost on losing teams and a wonderful 5-foot-10, 250-pound middle linebacker named London Fletcher, a free-agent rookie signed last year from John Carroll.

Don Shula went to John Carroll.

Is that an omen?