The Carolina Panthers are good enough to beat a team made up of those 11 Vermeils, but they couldn’t handle the ancient coach’s other team — the suddenly awesome St. Louis Rams.

The Rams, doormats for a decade, improved their record to an NFC-best 10-2 on Sunday by beating the Panthers 34-21. The win wrapped up the NFC West title for Vermeil (who was retired from football three years ago) and put the Rams in the playoffs for the first time since 1989.

The loss did not mathematically eliminate the Panthers (5-7) from contention for a wild card playoff berth, but a loss to Green Bay at Lambeau Field next week will do the trick.

Carolina trailed 21-0 in the first half, but rallied to within 24-21 and was driving toward a stunning upset when former Tar Heel star Dre Bly picked off a Steve Beuerlein pass and returned it for a 56-yard touchdown at the 9:48 mark. Bly’s big play left the Panthers shellshocked. They did not threaten again.

With playoff dreams dancing in their heads, this was the biggest game the Panthers, who were looking for their third straight win, have played in years. But they acted as indifferent as the 8,000-plus no-shows in the early going.

The Panther secondary tackled like little old ladies from Pasadena. The failure of the DBs to bring down Ram wideouts after short passes from Kurt Warner, who became only the 25th quarterback in NFL history to throw more than 30 TD passes in a season, killed Carolina. With a big assist from Panther corner Eric Davis, Warner pushed his TD total for the season to 32, breaking the team mark set by Jim Everett in 1988.

The Rams scored on their first two possessions, with Warner, the ex-Arena Leaguer, hitting a diving Roland Williams for one score and dumping to sprinter Ah-Zahir Hakim, who blazed by the Panthers for 48 yards, for another.

The Panthers, meanwhile kicked themselves with penalties and drops. Brian Kinchen, Muhsin Muhammad, Terry Metcalf and even Wesley Walls took turns dooming drives by treating catchable throws like bars of wet soap.

The first quarter numbers were mind-boggling. In the first 15 minutes, the Panthers gained just 37 yards. The Rams rolled up 202.

“We came out and played like we were in a coma,” said Panther center Frank Garcia. “Why, I’m not sure. This was a big game.”

The Panthers bottomed out when Warner and Hakim burned them again with 4:27 left in the first half. The Panthers blitzed linebackers and Hakim made the exposed secondary look like a bunch of grumpy old men. He whizzed around Davis for 49 yards and a 21-0 lead.

But the game took a shocking turn with 1:11 left in the first half.

On fourth-and-10 at the Ram 26, Panthers coach George Seifert boldly told his troops to forget about a field goal, and Beuerlein, who would throw for three scores and 266 yards, completed an 11-yard pass to Patrick Jeffers to keep the drive going. Then with 41 seconds left in the half, Beuerlein found Walls down the middle for a touchdown, cutting the deficit to 21-7.

After a bizarre third-quarter play on which the Rams intercepted Beuerlein, but then fumbled back to the Panthers on the ensuing return, Beuerlein drilled a 36-yard TD pass to Donald Hayes who had gotten behind backup corner Taje Allen to make it 21-14.

A Ram field goal by Jeff Wilkins pushed the Rams’ lead to 24-14, but now the Panthers had mounds of momentum and immediately scored again. Beuerlein threw to Jeffers on the sideline and Ram corner Dexter McCleon missed the tackle, allowing Jeffers to sprint 71 yards for a TD.

Now, it was 24-21. Ericsson was alive as it hasn’t been all year and the Rams looked fully capable of folding — and having to re-fold the championship T-shirts that they had brought along.

When Wilkins missed a field goal with 10:43 remaining, the Panthers looked poised to finish off a miraculous comeback.

On third-and-3 at the Panther 48, Beuerlein thought he had Muhammad open for a first down. But as he did so many times for the Tar Heels, Bly broke on the ball, picked it off and had an open path to the end zone. That pick was the ballgame and likely wrecked the season for the Panthers.

“It was embarrassing,” said Walls. “All the air went out of our sails on that one play. We didn’t just lose; we let them clinch the division on our field in front of our fans.”

“Winning a title is an unbelievable feeling,” said the emotional Vermeil, who as usual, broke into tears after the game.