It’s been a long time since I felt remotely connected to the Los Angeles Rams. Certainly not since 1994, their last season in Southern California before the deliciously evil Georgia Frontiere hustled them off to St. Louis for buckets of cash.

The St. Louis Rams never did a thing for me. Some other team. From Day 1. They got to the Super Bowl, won it … I didn’t care. Not angry. Not sad. A complete disconnect.

And then came Green Bay-at-Minnesota tonight and Eric Dickerson, and for a moment I was a kid again — and a Rams partisan.

In 1984, Eric Dickerson rushed for 2,105 yards, an NFL record, for a good Rams team. Coached by lovable ol’ ground-pounding John Robinson, who in Dickerson had the NFL answer to Marcus Allen or Ricky Bell.

John Robinson previously had been the coach at USC, and would be again later, and he liked nothing better than to give the football, over and over, to an elite running back.

The working theory was that you could not win an NFL championship that way, but Robinson was determined to test that, and he made the playoffs four consecutive times with Eric Dickerson as his prime mover on offense.

Dickerson was good. Really good. That rare combination of power (6-3, 220) and speed.

He had an odd, very upright running style. The theory was he would not last long because he was so easy to hit — if not to tackle. He was the anti-Barry Sanders — he had very little wiggle to his running and it wasn’t like he would disappear into a pile and come out the other side.

So, in 1984, Dickerson was in his second season, and in his prime, at age 24, and Robinson gave him the ball over and over — 379 times in 16 games — and he set that rushing record (albeit in two more games than O.J. Simpson had during a 14-game season in 1973, when he was still known for being a great football player).

And that record stood. And stood. And stands. But only barely.

Because of Adrian Peterson.

Peterson is to the Minnesota Vikings what Eric Dickerson was to the 1984 Rams, but perhaps moreso. The 1984 Rams had a semi-competent quarterback, Jeff Kemp, and the 2012 Vikings make do with Christian Ponder, who has not yet risen to the level of semi-competent — not by modern standards, anyway. (His 78.8 QB rating in 2012 is better than Kemp’s 78.7 was in 1984, but quarterbacks were not as efficient back then. Joe Montana aside.)

Peterson is a ball of muscle, and he may be faster than was Eric Dickerson, and he certainly is shiftier.

But the idea that someone might get close to Dickerson’s record, in an era when the forward pass has long since been deemed the way to victory … that seemed ludicrous. Put to bed by history and football trends.

But Peterson is so good, and the Vikings passing game so limited, that he got the ball over and over, and as I woke in the middle of the night here in the UAE, and decided to turn on ESPN America to see who in the NFL was playing, and there were the Vikings and Packers, and the broadcasters kept showing how many yards Peterson needed to break Dickerson’s record.

And then came one of those moments when you realize you have a rooting interest in a game. In this case, I did not want Dickerson’s record — one of the last and perhaps most tangible of all things Los Angeles Rams — to be broken. Not by Peterson. Not by anybody.

So here I was, hoping the clock would move along more quickly, as Peterson kept ripping off chunks of yardage against the Packers’ tackling-impaired defense.

At the start of the game, Peterson needed more than 200 yards to catch Dickerson. And the countdown went on. And he was getting darn close to 200.

With the game tied at 31-31 in the final minute, Minnesota had the ball on the Green Bay 37-yard line — and Peterson needed 35 yards to break the record.

I thought it could happen. I very much wished it would not. I was a Rams partisan again. I wanted Eric Dickerson of the Los Angeles Rams to keep that record.

Peterson burst through the Green Bay defense, again, and for about the 10th time I was left thinking, “Certainly, someone can get that man to the ground sooner than later” … and the Packers barely did. Actually, I believe he was pushed out of bounds by a guy named Morgan Burnett, a Packers safety.

After a 26-yard run to the 11.

Now Peterson needed nine yards.

However, the Vikings let the clock run down to :03, their field goal kicker came out, and he kicked a 29-yarder to win the game as time expired. After, Peterson seemed a bit too worried about the individual record, considering the Vikings were playing for the postseason.

The Vikings had won.

And the Los Angeles Rams had won. For the first time in a very long time.

Congrats, again, Eric Dickerson, John Robinson and the long, lost Los Angeles Rams.