LANDOVER, Md. — The St. Louis Rams seemed almost determined to sink to 0-5.

They fumbled at their own 4-yard line on their second play from scrim­mage. They were going nowhere un­til a fluke turnover flipped the mo­mentum. They blew a nine-point lead in the fourth quarter. They set them­selves up for a gimme field goal to win the game, then committed a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

But this is the start of the Jim Has­lett era, so maybe the ball is finally going to bounce the Rams’ way. The defense forced the Washington Red­skins offense into its first three turn­overs of the season, and Josh Brown kicked a 49-yard field goal on the last play Sunday to give the two-touch­down underdogs a 19-17 victory.

“I’m kind of, like, blank. I don’t know if I want to cry or laugh,” Rams linebacker Pisa Tinoisamoa said. “A lot of emotions hit me at once. It’s different, but a good different.”

A lot of emotions? Darn right. There was plenty of the bizarre in a game that ended the franchise’s eight-game losing streak over two seasons and helped put Scott Line­han, fired two weeks ago before the bye, firmly in the rearview mirror.

The Redskins, guilty of playing down to the opposition after two big NFC East road wins, appeared set to win their fifth straight game when Clinton Portis’ 2-yard run with 3:47 left gave Washington a 17-16 lead. St. Louis, however, had enough time to mount a comeback.

Reinstalled starter Marc Bulger hit Donnie Avery down the right sideline for a 43-yard gain on third-and-13 to move into field­goal territory.

But the Rams (1-4), being the Rams, nearly botched it from there. Withhisteamtryingtokilltheclock to set up for the easy kick, lineman Richie Incognito said something to an official that prompted a yellow flag. Brown, who was already 3-for­3 in the game, no longer had a chip shot to win it.

The Rams were able to convert only one of Washingtons’s three fumbles into a score, but it was the type of weird play that can give a struggling team the lift it needs.

With the Redskins in scoring position near the end of the first half, a pass tipped at the line of scrimmage ended up in the hands of offensive lineman Pete Kend­all. Tinoisamoa knocked the ball away from Kendall, and Oshio­mogho Atogwe picked it up and ran 75 yards for the touchdown that gave the Rams a 10-7 lead — and momentum that carried into the second half.