Analysis : Cost-Conscious Shaw, Rams May Pay the Price

For better or worse, the Rams have become a team not of punts and passes but of dots and dashes.

In the latest Ram catch-phrases, holdout has replaced pitchout. Standoff is in for handoff.

Add to your glossary of Ram terms lockout and walkout. Remove knockout.

Also add lowball, hardball and sleazeball. Remove football.

The question posed here is whether it’s better to put a team on the field or take a contract offer off the table.

This was to have been the week the Rams built their Super Bowl foundation. Instead, their top six draft choices stayed home. A 10th-round pick, David Smith, is holding out for more money. Do 10th-round picks even make the roster?

Said one insider: “The thought of someone beyond the third-round being out of camp weighs heavily on an intelligent mind.”

But such are the mind games being played out at Ram camp in Fullerton.

Still unaccounted for are five key veterans who remain unsigned just two days before the reporting date.

The Rams, in essence, have been holding training camp for the benefit of 40-odd free agents, 12th-round draft picks Fred Stokes and Alonzo Williams and eighth-rounder Michael Stewart.

If it’s not one thing it’s another. If it’s not Donald Evans holding out, it’s Henry Ellard. If it’s not Henry Ellard, it’s Mike Wilcher.

And if this turns out not to be the year the Rams go to the Super Bowl, you might want to mark this week down in your calendar for later reference.

Thursday, it was Ellard’s turn to take his shots at Ram management, which has maintained silence throughout.

Ellard’s story, of course, remains the same. Only the dates have changed. After holding out for seven games last season, he played the final nine for $10,000 a pop and still ended up as the leading receiver with 34 catches for 447 yards and 4 touchdowns.

“That ought to tell them something,” Ellard said of the Rams.

Apparently it didn’t. The Rams offered Ellard the same four-year, $1.6-million deal that was on the table last year.

Ellard didn’t accept. And again it has come to this: Ellard wants to be traded. Tomorrow, if it can be arranged.

“I’m fed up with the way they’ve treated my situation,” Ellard said Thursday. “I’ve been treated unfairly and unjustly. It’s time to go to a team where management respects players more than the Rams.”

The situation is odd in that the team has invested considerable money in a quarterback, Jim Everett, and an offensive coordinator, Ernie Zampese.

Yet the Rams haggle with Ellard, a proven talent.

So what gives?

“That’s a good question,” Ellard said.

Ram management’s tag team of Vice President John Shaw and general counsel Jay Zygmunt have chosen not to publicly discuss their rationale, but the team’s objectives seem clear. Last year, the Rams had the lowest payroll of any team in the playoffs. Being cost effective is important to the Rams, whose owner is not in the same financial league with some of the NFL’s big-money owners.

Nevertheless, most believe that the Rams have enough talent to make a run at the Super Bowl, but only if they soon sign Ellard and Evans, Irv Pankey and Wilcher, et al.

Now, it seems, the team has at least partially damaged those chances. Coach John Robinson has admitted that the season for the Rams’ missing seven draft choices is all but lost.

Veterans will report Sunday. The team will leave for London a week later to prepare for an exhibition game with the Denver Broncos Aug. 9. The Rams will play host to Seattle four days later.

“If a guy’s first practice is in mid-August, he doesn’t have a chance,” Robinson said of his draft choices.

Robinson, trying his diplomatic best to remain neutral, has admitted that management shares some of the blame for the lack of signings, but also suggests that the unilateral holdout of draft choices has been orchestrated league-wide by someone or something, say, a players’ union.

But he has a much more difficult time defending his front office in the continuing saga of Henry Ellard.

Ellard, who has sought a four-year, $2-million deal, said Thursday that he is willing to sign a one-year contract at the Rams’ offer of $400,000 annually; or for two years at the same base pay, provided incentives are included.

“Put in the incentives and let me earn them,” Ellard said. “That’s all we ask.”

The Rams, of course, would much rather lock Ellard into a four-year deal and not have to worry about dealing with him again in a year or two.

But does that make all this Super Bowl talk just talk?

“If they don’t make an effort to get the veterans into camp, it definitely jeopardizes the chance we have of going to the Super Bowl,” Ellard said.

He added that it is only out of frustration that he has asked to be traded.

Two weeks ago, Ellard sent “trade-me” letters to both owner Georgia Frontiere and Robinson.

Robinson, surprised at the tone of Ellard’s letter, called the wide receiver. Ellard received no response from Frontiere, who is vacationing in England.

But in a face-to-face meeting last September, the Ram owner reportedly promised Ellard that she would grant a trade if nothing could be resolved.

“I’m hoping Georgia will stand on her word, based on what she told me last year,” Ellard said Thursday.

Of course, asking for and receiving a trade are different matters. It’s true that Ellard is a free agent, but present NFL rules dictate that the Rams would have to be compensated heavily. The team also has the right of first refusal, meaning it can match any opposing offer and retain Ellard.

If the Rams aren’t willing to trade, Ellard’s faint hopes remain with the NFLPA working out a new collective bargaining agreement that would include total free agency, an idea that is vehemently opposed by NFL owners. The current agreement expires Aug. 31.

Throughout the ordeal, Ellard said he has maintained no malice toward Shaw, nor does he question his motives.

“The man is trying to do his job,” Ellard said. “But he’s doing the job too well. It’s going to end up hurting the Rams more than it helps them.”

Some are predicting that Shaw will bottom-line the Rams right out of the Super Bowl. But how about that quarterly report?

Ram Notes Coach John Robinson said a decision on whether or not to sign wide receiver Tony Hill will be made today. Hill, the former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver, worked out with the 49ers Thursday. Robinson also hinted that some progress is being made in signing veteran tight end Tony Hunter. . . . Tackle Duval Love and safety Vince Newsome signed contracts Thursday.