ST. LOUIS -- So how to do the St. Louis Rams keep from getting a ''here we go again'' mindset after a 28-0 season-opening loss to the Seattle Seahawks?
"I told the team this morning that we should all be upset that we lost because we're not going to accept losing,'' Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo said. "But, we don't get frustrated, we don't get down. We just get the mistakes corrected that led to the losing, and move on to Washington.''
The Rams now have lost 28 of their last 33 games. They're 10-point underdogs to the Washington Redskins on Sunday at FedEx Field.
Spagnuolo spurned any comparison of this year's team to the bumbling Rams of recent years.
"I told the guys this morning, too, that our only concern about the 2009 Rams, and the 2009 Rams stand on their own,'' Spagnuolo said. "They have nothing to do with teams coming forward, or any teams going backward. It's all just about the 2009 Rams. We lost a football game. We lost one football game. We have to figure out the ways and whys that it happened, and move on to the next game.''
Despite the loss, it's not the same old Rams to free safety Oshiomogho Atogwe.
"Regardless of what people want to believe, this is a whole new season,'' Atogwe said. "A lot of other teams lost their first game yesterday. We're just 0-1 like they are.''
The Rams held a "correction walk-through,'' an informal practice, on Monday in attempt to clean up the mistakes they made against the Seahawks.
"That's new,'' Atogwe said. "I think it's always important to correct your mistakes from your last game. The more times you can walk through it and get visual reps at it, it should sink into a player's head.''
Penalties were the Rams' biggest problem against the Seahawks.
They were flagged 10 times for 85 yards. They had four false starts and three unnecessary roughness penalties. A fourth unnecessary roughness infraction on Steven Jackson was declined.
"Very frustrating because I thought, especially offensively, that we did some real good things,'' Spagnuolo said. "I thought some things were going really positive and really well for us early, and we kind of got set back there by the penalties. Overcoming penalties in this league is hard. Tough, tough, tough to have an offensive drive end in points when there is a penalty involved.''
The Rams had a blocked field goal that was returned for a touchdown negated by a too-many-men-on-the-field penalty late in the first half.
C.J. Ah You blocked the field goal, and Quincy Butler picked up the loose ball and ran 51 yards for a touchdown that appeared to tie the score.
But, there was a booth review on the play, which can happen when there is under two minutes to play in either half.
The replay revealed that the Rams had 12 men on the field, and Ah You later admitted that he was the extra guy.
"The bottom line is that we probably don't block the kick if we don't have 12 guys,'' Spagnuolo said. "That's inexcusable, that shouldn't happen. There was a miscount. There was an error all the way across the board. There will be a lot of people who take responsibility, and I'm one of them.''
Rams quarterback Marc Bulger completed only 17 of 36 passes (47 percent) for 191 yards.
Spagnuolo said he liked what he saw from Bulger, who angerily popped up after taking a shot at the end of a 2-yard scramble in the second half.
"I thought Marc played gutsy, I really did,'' Spagnuolo said. "He got rid of the ball when he was in trouble, which was smart. He scrambled a little bit. I probably would have liked for him to take a slide on that one play, but he showed some toughness. I thought he gutted it out. He'd probably tell you he'd want a couple of plays back like everybody would, but overall (he was) pretty solid.''
Asked about the Rams' apparent lack of commitment to the run -- Jackson had 16 carries for 67 yards -- Spagnuolo said: "The game might have dictated that a little bit. We'd like to establish that. I think every team, every offense would like to establish that. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. When you get in a 28-0 ballgame, sometimes the numbers at the end look a little different.''
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