Rams Notebook : Rams, Dickerson Are Still Dickering

Eric Dickerson’s season is not going well, but it’s going better than his contract negotiations.

He has not signed a contract extension. Apparently, he is not about to sign one. And he probably won’t sign one until after the season, which is ironic.

That’s when the Rams said they would talk to him about one before he became a holdout.

“We have been having some meetings,” said Jack Rodri, an advisor for Dickerson. “But there’s really nothing to talk about.”

Rodri meant he had nothing to talk about publicly. Dickerson ended his holdout on the Rams’ promise to “negotiate in good faith,” as long as Dickerson’s people would quit talking to the press.

So, the season is half over and, if the Rams are stretching “good faith” to the limit, Dickerson’s camp isn’t complaining. His performance so far hasn’t helped their leverage.

Like Dickerson, New Orleans Saints Coach Bum Phillips wasn’t talking this week, either, but for a different reason. He had lost his voice with a bad case of laryngitis and canceled the usual conference call with reporters before Sunday’s game at Anaheim.

Instead, the reporters heard from Jack Del Rio, the former USC linebacker who became a Saint starter last week.

Funny, but Del Rio said Bum’s voice was “fine. He just had to speak softly (at practice Thursday).”

Anyway, Phillips was driving home from last Sunday’s game against the Giants in his pickup truck in the driving rain brought by Hurricane Juan when he came upon a motorist stranded in knee-deep water. Phillips stopped and pushed him to safety, but the man couldn’t go anywhere else because of the flooding.

So, Phillips took him home, fed him, gave him dry clothes and put him up for the night.

All he learned was the man’s first name, but the guy should be a Saints fan for life.

Del Rio was the Saints’ third-round draft choice this year. He notices a difference between the thinking at USC and New Orleans.

“There’s somewhat of a defeatist attitude around here, not so much with the players as the people around town,” Del Rio said.

The Saints (3-5) haven’t had a winning season in their previous 18 and must win six of their last eight to do it this season.

Del Rio was a three-year starter at USC but was generally downgraded by draft time, especially after his performance at a scouting tryout camp.

“Because I had a great career, I thought people would overlook my not having a great senior year and being a little out of shape,” Del Rio said.

After last season, he said, he spent a month on the “rubber chicken All-American circuit, living out of a suitcase, then I found out I had to go try out in a week. I could hardly bend over and touch my toes.”

Normally, Del Rio said, he runs “a consistent 4.8” 40-yard sprint, but he managed only a 4.9 and 4.95 for the scouts.

The Saints list his speed at 4.9, but Phillips says: “He’s sure fast enough to run over and make the tackle.”

Some Ram watchers think quarterback Dieter Brock holds the ball too long. Brock’s agent, Gil Scott of Toronto, says Brock hasn’t changed his style from his years in the Canadian Football League, but it’s certainly perceived differently in the National Football League.

“He was always praised up here that he’d take all kinds of punishment to complete a pass,” Scott said.

That’s the way Ram Coach John Robinson sees it--that Brock is courageous and competitive, not indecisive and unable to read coverages. Robinson says he is still astounded--the word he usually uses--that the critics haven’t accepted Brock.

“Most of the people in Canada think it’s because he didn’t come up their way, through the NFL draft,” Scott said. “They didn’t see him play at USC or Notre Dame.”

Scott has three other CFL clients he’ll be shopping around the NFL next spring--all wide receivers.

The best is Terry Greer of the Toronto Argonauts. Like Brock, he’s from Alabama. The Rams drafted him on the 11th round in 1980 out of Alabama State and retain first rights of refusal in the NFL--that is, all they have to do is match anyone else’s offer.

The other two are Jeff Boyd from Cal State Fullerton and James (Magic) Murphy, who played for Ram running backs coach Bruce Snyder when the latter was head coach at Utah State. Both are free agents with Winnipeg.

Boyd is second in receiving in the CFL with 86 catches. Greer is third.