Position by position:

* QB: Kurt Warner’s lost season took a disastrous turn early in the game. While being taken down after throwing a ridiculously stupid screen pass for an interception, his right hand hit the turf and the little finger he broke in 2000 broke again. MRI on Monday, surgery is expected, and Kurt is out 4-6 weeks. Kurt finished 1-2-17; his 8th INT of the year led to Dallas’ only TD. Thrust into the spotlight, Jamie Martin responded quite well, 24-37, 261 yards, 1 TD. Jamie’s timing was good. His passing was very accurate. He had the offense moving with good tempo in a quicker-passing scheme. He looked more comfortable in the pocket than Warner has so far this year. Martin finished a 63-yard TD drive late in the 1st half with a nice TD pass to Isaac Bruce, and led the offense on a 15-play, 65-yard, 8 ½ minute odyssey for a 3rd-quarter FG. Jamie missed a big opportunity at the end of that drive, throwing a tough pass for Torry Holt in the back of the end zone with Isaac Bruce and Marshall Faulk wide open elsewhere. Jamie also blew a TD opportunity in the 2nd when a pass for a wide-open Bruce was gobbled up by the Dallas secondary instead for his only INT. Jamie’s passes don’t exactly have a lot of zing; in fact, his passes toward the sideline, like the INT, tended to have hang time. He made a worse-than-rookie mistake in the 2nd, spiking the ball with 2:00 left instead of waiting for the 2:00 warning. That didn’t cost the Rams, but the missed TD opportunities cost dearly today. But still a capable game from the backup-turned-starter, for the next few weeks. If Jamie becomes a better finisher, the Show may yet go on, if in a scaled-down version.

* RB: Marshall Faulk seems to be holding up his end of the bargain. 140 total yards today – 73 rushing, 67 receiving. But you know the Rams are snake bitten when a reliable ball carrier like Marshall fumbles after a 15-yard gain on the Rams’ first play from scrimmage, thanks to a big hit from three different Cowboys. He also dropped a pass in the 2nd, part of a Rams 3-and-out. The offense ran through him to the tune of 27 touches. He set up the Rams’ TD with 2 catches for 26. He had 7 plays of 8 yards or more with a long of 17. That should be enough for an offense to get more than 10 points, but not today. And although Marshall has put up serviceable numbers, he has yet to have a truly dominating game this season. He’s only around 4.0 per rush, opposed to his 5.5 or so during the Rams’ reign of terror. Marshall’s play is hardly a flaw. But the Rams need more spectacular play from Marshall, and they need it more than ever before.

* Receivers: “Receivers” should almost be singular here. Another big day for Torry Holt, 9 catches for 106. He regularly found the seams in the Dallas zone, although they limited his YAC well. Isaac Bruce was only 3 for 52. Yes, he had a TD and probably could have had two more, but numbers are numbers. Ike needs to spend less time jawing with DBs downfield and spend more time getting open. Rickey Proehl caught 2 balls, one to convert a 3rd-and-7 on the Rams’ FG drive. But the Rams have no true #3 receiver. Slo!, I mean Yo!, Murphy has been on the field more this year than Terrence Wilkins and Troy Edwards com-bined, including today, when Wilkins wasn’t thrown to and Edwards never made the field. Ernie Conwell got more involved today; according to the NFL game log, they threw his way 5 times. He had a 25-yard catch in the 2nd but dropped a pass later that quarter. Ernie also didn’t impress on his reverse right before the crucial Martin sack with 1:40 left. With any speed at all, he does better than just 2 yards there.

* Offensive line: Embattled tackles John St. Clair and Grant Williams both got help today from Mike Martz, in the form of a quicker passing game. With Martin usually throwing out of a short drop, the line was able to keep the heat away from him. The Cowboys applied a lot of heat by blitzing possibly ¾ of the time. But the tackles weren’t getting whipped like Monday night, although Williams still showed trouble with speed rushes. Run blocking looked a lot stronger. For the first time this year, Faulk had some gaping holes to run through. Adam Timmerman and Tom Nutten did especially good jobs there, and La’Roi Glover wasn’t much of a factor against a team he usually eats up. The line didn’t even allow a sack until the biggest play of the game, the 3rd-and-3 from the Dallas 25 with 1:40 left. Somehow the TE, Brandon Manumaleuna, ends up as the guy who’s supposed to block DE Greg Ellis, but Ellis blew in completely untouched and sacked Martin for the game’s biggest defensive play.

* Defensive line/LB: It’s true; the front seven misses London Fletcher. Yes, the statistics defensively are about the same. But nobody on this front seven is coming up with the clutch play. That’s the element that London brought that Lovie Smith better figure out how to replace, and quickly. Nobody made a play during Dallas’ game-winning FG drive, especially the play where Michael Wiley was left all alone for a 15-yard catch with 0:13 left to put the Cowboys in range. Where were the linebackers? And while Leonard Little and Grant Wistrom each had a sack, and Little especially got some good heat on Quincy Carter, it was still nowhere near enough, as a career 50% passer got comfortable in the pocket to the tune of a 72% completion rate and 204 yards. This was against an offensive line that was completely re-shuffled * on Thursday *. And why would Lovie ever have Wistrom and Little out of the game together? At one point, the line from left to right was Young, Zgonina, Pickett and Lewis, 4 DTs. And guess what? No push. And overall run defense was poor. They allowed over 120 yards and about 5 yards per rush. Pickett did deflect 2 passes. Don Davis forced a fumble right after Faulk’s 1st quarter fumble. He and Jamie Duncan had 7 tackles apiece. The defense did give up just 13 points. But they let Dallas move downfield pretty easily for their tying FG, and instead of making the big play with the game on the line, they made the big mistake to set up the winning TD. Four times this year, they’ve done just enough to * not * win.

* Secondary: Despite losing Dexter McCleon last week and Aeneas Williams during the first half, the defensive backs did close to a bang-up job. Dre Bly may be the NFL’s worst tackler, but he ran Joey Galloway’s route for him and hauled in a big interception on the last play of the 3rd quarter. Rookie Travis Fisher got a lot of play, and looked good. As he did in preseason, he played very strong against the run and made good open-field tackles. James Whitley, the last DB on the roster, was pressed into action and accounted for himself well. The worst DB play I can recall is Aeneas getting burned early by Antonio Bryant for 35 in the 1st, although I suspect the crucial 12th man on the field who extended Dallas’ TD drive had to be a DB. Don’t know yet how long the leader of the secondary will be out with an ankle sprain.

* Special teams: Jeff Wilkins gets paid a heck of a lot of money to miss a 49-yard FG indoors with a game, and probably a season, on the line. Good snap, good hold, but the barefoot wonder can’t even get the ball there. Choke city. Thanks a lot, Jeff. The Cowboys routinely pull guys off the street who kick well for them. The Giants are getting a fantastic season out of a pawnbroker, for crying out loud. If I’m in charge, Wilkins is Cap Victim #1 after this season. Mitch Berger’s punts were effective, if ugly, and the Rams got good punt and kick coverage. Punt return penalties hurt the team’s field position a couple of times. Despite Berger’s Pro Bowl-quality punting, there’s as much room to improve on special teams as ever.

* Coaching/discipline: The two biggest plays of this game were coaching disasters. The Cowboys converted a 4th-and-short on their TD drive thanks to the Rams having 12 men on the field. The epitome of poor org-anization. Under just as big a magnifying glass is Mike Martz’s decision to pass on 3rd-and-3 from the Dallas 25 with 1:40 left. Yeah, let’s force the backup QB to make a big play instead of putting the ball in the hands of the most valuable player in the league. The epitome of Martz’s unconventional play calls biting him in the derriere. Another poor performance in the clutch by the head coach. It’s a shame, because up until then, Martz had really been doing everything you could ask of him. Faulk got 27 touches. Martz called good running plays for him. Martz bowed to the realities of his offensive line situation and was very effect-tive with a quicker passing game. More short drops, more quick passes worked out well. The playbook looked wide open again. There was a Proehl WR option that nearly worked, and the Cowboys didn’t expect the Bruce reverse on 3rd-and-1 of the failed final drive at all. The Rams had a chance to win this game despite losing Pro Bowler Orlando Pace earlier this week and losing two Pro Bowlers, Warner and Williams, during the game. Martz makes a better call on 3rd-and-3, the Rams win this game and have something to rally around. Instead, we’re all in need of about a crate of Zoloft. After the unforgivable 12-men penalty, Lovie Smith’s defense got woefully fooled on the WR screen to Darnay Scott. You just got schooled by – DAVE CAMPO?!?!? What’s next, Kasparov loses the world chess title to Anna Nicole? If the defense’s fundamentals were better – less missed tackles, fewer blown assignments – maybe that big play they never seem to make would have come. That’s a coaching fundamental.

* Upon further review: Adequate officiating at best from the Larry Nemmers crew. If the radio crew was right, and Joey Galloway was actually down on his early fumble, that was their biggest blown call. Snow and Savard also thought the tripping call against Timmerman on the last drive was terrible. The refs missed Emmitt taking his helmet off on the field. Bly may also have gotten away with that. They had too much difficulty spotting the ball and getting a clean ball in on time, and slowed the game down with several conferences that seemed unnecessary. I don’t think the Rams can blame the zebras today, though.

* Cheers: Nothing but boos today. The defense got booed for its sloppy early play. Faulk got booed after dropping a pass. There’s grateful fans for ya. Martin got booed for wasting a timeout. Martz, then Wilkins, got booed for their horrible performances at the end of the game. The fans here justifiably were not pre-pared for a shockingly rapid descent from Super Bowl to toilet bowl… There were a lot of loud Cowboy fans in the crowd. Unlike the Big Dead days, these folks clearly aren’t bandwagon fans, because Dallas just isn’t very good. But I have to tip my hat to those fans for their willing spirit… Facts I hate to mention: The freaking Big Dead are TWO games ahead of the Rams now after figuring out the Giant team the Rams couldn’t handle in Week 2. And the Dallas team the Rams couldn’t beat today lost in Week 1 to a team that had NEVER PLAYED A GAME, the Houston Texans… Things have gotten deeply, deeply ugly here.

* Who’s next?: It gets worse, Ram fans. The Rams’ 6-game winning streak over the 49ers is all but certain to end as the Rams head to San Francisco next week. The 49er fan who made up the league schedule gave them a week off before this meeting, so it’ll be a well-rested and fired-up home team, firing on most of its cylinders versus a haggard, banged-up, sputtering bunch of visitors misfiring on most of its. Before this weekend, there were maybe reasons for hope. Jeff Garcia has been terrible, largely because defenses are double- and triple-teaming Terrell Owens and the Niners have no viable alternative receivers. But can a defensive backfield of Bly, Fisher, Butler and Whitley pull that off? The 49ers made up for their passing game last week with 200+ yards rushing. The Ram front seven has played the run pretty well, but given their complete underachievement as pass rushers, does it matter if they do force the 49ers to pass? The Ram offense has become so wretched that not even the great Marshall Faulk has been able to carry it to a victory this year. Marshall usually has big days against San Francisco, and may again. But will it be enough? Will Isaac Bruce step forward? Will Jamie Martin get enough time to throw against a 49er rush that really hasn’t been that good so far? Will Martz find somebody, ANYBODY, to show up as the third WR? Heck, the 49ers specifically drafted Mike Rumph this year to try to neutralize the Rams’ third WR – is Martz trying to play some kind of complex joke on them? The Rams are capable of winning this game if enough things go right (for a change), but as much as I hate to think this way against our most hated rival, we really have to rely on the “any given Sunday” theory now if we are not to see the Rams at 0-5. Cross your fingers.

-- Mike