A NEW GAME PLAN : Without Dickerson, Rams Are Forced to Make Adjustments on and Off Field

Eric Dickerson was very big in Columbus, Ohio, this summer. He danced across television screens, smiled out from sports pages and had pulses racing in anticipation of the Rams’ game against the Eagles last week.

“Come see Eric Dickerson and the Rams,” was the pitch.

Said Pete Donovan, the Rams’ director of public relations: “All the promotional material we sent back there was Dickerson.”

But when it became apparent that Dickerson would be a no-show at Columbus, as he has been at Anaheim, the game turned from filet mignon to chopped liver, and only 22,623 came out. The Rams, 14-12 losers, played as if they were making the 5,000-mile round trip just for a workout.

Without Dickerson, the face of the Rams changes in several ways--promotion, performance and all-round pizazz--and the people who work in those areas already are adjusting to the possibility that Dickerson won’t be around at all this season.

Apparently, the fans are, too. The sale of season tickets is lagging behind last year’s pace, when fewer than 50,000 were sold, according to ticket manager Don Nims.

“It’s obvious some people are holding back,” Nims said. “They’re down a little bit, but they are all across the country. Maybe it’s our raise in prices (from $198 to $231 for the season), or maybe it’s that money’s tight.”

Nims said he wouldn’t know for sure unless Dickerson returned and sales suddenly surged. For now, the Rams have put any promotions involving Dickerson on hold.

The running back was supposed to be on the cover of the National Football League’s “Game Day” program for the opener against Denver at Anaheim a week from Sunday. Instead, safety Nolan Cromwell will be featured. The 12,000 Dickerson covers are in the printer’s warehouse.

Several other clubs that will play host to the Rams this season are wondering what to do with the Dickerson covers they ordered for the day No. 29 came to town.

“And just this week, I had to send stuff back to the outfit that produces our calendars,” Donovan said. “I didn’t send (pictures of) Eric.”

Dickerson also sparkled on the cover of the season-ticket brochure that was mailed out in the spring; he is the subject of the three-page lead article in the Ram yearbook, and of course, he practically jumps out of the screen in the ’84 highlight film.

In a sense, those promotional devices, all produced before Dickerson held out, put the Rams in the position of selling a product they can’t supply.

Overall, it hasn’t been a good year for Ram headliners. Dickerson is holding out, Vince Ferragamo was traded to Buffalo and Jack Youngblood retired. They constituted half the lineup on the tuxedo poster of last season.

Normally, much of the local publicity and virtually all of the out-of-town ink would concern players of their stature. Over the last two seasons, reporters who cover Ram opponents would invariably request an interview with one of the three.

“Those were three of the most marketable names we had,” Donovan said. “We’ve had to re-direct things. You hope someone else will emerge.

“Meantime, we’ve gone to a more generic type of appeal: ‘Come out and see the Rams play exciting football.’ ”

Now the load has fallen on the new quarterback, Dieter Brock, who would welcome Dickerson’s return for no other reason than to get the media off his back.

Brock, relatively unknown but suddenly prominent, has been patient and cooperative through interviews, with the same questions repeated hundreds of times in the last month.

“If ‘Dick’ were here, he’d not only take the burden off Dieter on the field but in the media demands,” Donovan said.

“Eric is an offensive star with the ball. You want to talk to the guy who throws it or carries it, sometimes the guy who catches it.”

So far this summer, not many Rams have been catching it, and the main guy who has carried it--Barry Redden--hasn’t granted any interviews.

Redden’s reticence “muddles the situation,” Donovan said.

The Rams have an outstanding offensive line, but film clips or radio tapes of great plays by guards are hard to come by.

There has been one saving factor, the club’s 40th anniversary. A widely circulated poster and most other promotions are now focused on that. The Rams’ flagship radio station, KMPC, has been replaying great plays of the last 40 years, although, lately, not too many by Dickerson.

On the field, the Rams’ offense this summer has borne a remarkable resemblance to the Chuck Knox-coached Rams of the mid-1970s, which starred Lawrence McCutcheon slashing consistently for four or five yards off tackle but seldom for a long gain.

Those teams won, but critics said they were boring--and in this media market, that’s worse than losing.

Redden, a first-round draft choice from Richmond in 1982, is above average, but he isn’t Dickerson. The Rams will run the same plays. They just won’t look the same.

Coach John Robinson said: “I don’t think anything changes. The biggest concern I have is the durability of Barry Redden. I don’t have any reason to doubt it, but he hasn’t proven it.”

Bruce Snyder, who coaches the Ram running backs, said: “Barry needs the line to knock everybody down, and then he’s gone. Eric didn’t need you to knock everybody down.”

Offensive tackle Bill Bain said: “It just means that instead of eight-play drives, we’ll have 12-play drives. We’ll have to get used to being on the field longer.

“Now, that’s just looking at it from the running game. With Eric, we might have had a 20-yard run where now we may have a 10, but Dieter may take up the slack there and make those eight-play drives again.”

Ram Notes The Rams Thursday tried out three wide receivers who had been released earlier in the week: Wayne Capers, drafted second by Kansas City in ‘83; Phil Smith, an ’83 fourth-rounder from Indianapolis, and Ray Alexander, a free agent from Denver. Smith has never caught a pass in an NFL game but was the Colts’ main kickoff returner. . . . Chuck Scott, the Rams’ second-round pick from Vanderbilt, watched practice with his left arm in a sling. He has a strained rotator cuff and probably will be put on injured reserve next week. . . . Coach John Robinson said that rookie Michael Young, a sixth-round pick from UCLA, is now the third wide receiver, behind Henry Ellard and Ron Brown. Young has caught two passes in the three exhibition games.