GOOD LEGS TO STAND ON : Stepped-On Rams Still Have Something to Kick About

Great moments in Ram kicking history:

--Mike Lansford, then a no-name free agent with the New York Giants, impresses the fellas with his strong kicking leg. They know this because his kicks rarely rise three or four feet above the ground, just high enough to smack the living bejabbers out of unsuspecting blockers.

Lansford will say later: “If I got it over the center’s behind, it was a good kick. It was dodgeball for those guys.”

The Giants cut Lansford. So do the Raiders. So do the San Francisco 49ers. Lansford calls it “the most confusing time of my life.”

But Lansford is sure about one thing: He will continue to kick barefoot, a habit he acquired after a blister on his right foot forced him to discard his shoe. “A fluke,” says Lansford.

Many thanks, say the Rams.

--Punter Dale Hatcher contracts the dreaded “lazy ankle” during his second season with the Rams, to say nothing of his bouts with frustration, self-doubt and apathy.

Hatcher’s punting average, so remarkable during his Pro Bowl rookie season, plummets in 1986. He begins to tinker with his drop, his steps, his kicking angle. Nothing works.

“I just couldn’t seem to find it,” he says. “I would get in there and think negative. I’d get in there and be very unsure of myself. I didn’t know where the ball was going to go.”

Now listen to him: “I don’t know if I was hungry for (success) or not, but I am now. Now when I get in there, I feel confident.”

Many thanks, say the Rams.

Out of the gloom of last Sunday’s surprising 20-16 loss to the Houston Oilers comes news that not everyone , as Coach John Robinson had suggested in his postgame comments, played poorly. Easily forgotten in the Astrodome mess were Lansford and Hatcher.

Lansford kicked three field goals in Houston, which raises his modest streak to six (if you include his last three of 1986). He hasn’t missed a thing this season--including exhibitions--and has moved into fourth place on the all-time Ram scoring list with his 10 points against the Oilers.

Then there is Hatcher, who was asked to punt seven times last Sunday and responded with a 46.4-yard average. That surpassed anything he did last year, which wasn’t all that memorable to begin with.

For Lansford, the three field goals confirm what he has been saying all along, which is: “ I’m actually excited to get out there and kick the ball.”

For Hatcher, the return to previous form, however temporary, serves as sort of a personal vindication.

“I just can’t throw in a year like (1986),” he says. “I want to be on the top every year. That was embarrassing last year.”

Lansford is accustomed to the feeling. Get released three times as a free agent and you learn the meaning of humility.

But this is his sixth year with the Rams, long enough to know that he is getting better, that his decision to go shoeless wasn’t a mistake, but the answer.

“When I’m kicking well, even when I mis-hit the ball it’s going through,” he says.

These are happy times for Lansford. He has a new baby daughter, a new contract and a new confidence. He also has, he says, a reputation.

“I’m probably known throughout the league as a guy with not a real strong leg, but strong enough, a guy not with real great accuracy, but he’s accurate,” he says. “And a guy who time and time again has come through in the clutch.”

Need reminders? Lansford is available for history lessons.

For instance, there’s last season’s game-winning kick against the then-undefeated Chicago Bears at Soldier Field. Lansford made the 50-yarder despite a brisk Lake Michigan wind, cold temperatures and a determined Bear rush.

Television replays showed Lansford admiring the kick and then having his helmet nearly ripped off by holder Steve Dils.

“It was so pretty to watch it go through,” Lansford says. “I wanted to watch it rather than celebrate. That Chicago kick is possibly the best field goal I’ve ever, ever hit. The way the ball took off from my foot . . . the situation . . . “

And Lansford doesn’t mind recalling a certain 42-yarder against the New Orleans Saints in 1983. That kick sent the Rams to the playoffs.

Defensive end Gary Jeter, a former Giant who remembered Lansford’s line drives from his brief stay in New York, retired to the sidelines shortly before the celebrated kick. He lay down on the Superdome floor, stared at the ceiling and waited for a sign.

“I knew that if the fans screamed, you missed it,” he told Lansford later. “If we screamed, you made it.”

Lansford made it--for good.

“The New Orleans kick entrenched me into the league and definitely into the minds of the coaches that I could (kick),” Lansford says. “That obviously was the turning point in my career.”

Lansford has a theory. According to his informal observations, it actually might be more difficult to kick for the Rams than, say, a perennial loser.

“Think back, when’s the last time we blew somebody out?” he says. “I can’t think of one. (Try 1985--Rams 46, St. Louis Cardinals 14.) A PAT in the first quarter has as much impact on this team as a field goal in the last three seconds. Even more important is the kickoff following that.

“We are not a team that blows people out, therefore every point is crucial. Every time I go out on the field, it’s more pressure than say, being on a team that blows people out or being on a team that gets blown out. I think that helps with my ability to handle pressure. The pressure is always here. I don’t know any different.”

Hatcher arrived in Anaheim in 1985, a third-round choice from Clemson. Before he left his hometown of Cheraw, S.C., friends and family mentioned how nice it would be if he made the Pro Bowl.

“Are you kidding?” said Hatcher. “I’ll never make that.”

So, of course, he did. He averaged 43.2 yards a kick and generally spent the season pinning opponents deep in their own territory. “The most natural punter I’ve ever seen,” Lansford says.

Mr. Natural returned for his second season and disappointed everyone, most notably himself. That gaudy average shrunk like 100% cotton. So did Hatcher’s confidence.

“The whole problem was that I wasn’t mentally strong,” he says. “I had the physical ability, but I didn’t have it upstairs, mentally. You’ve got to have both of them working together.

“I’d get out there and think everything was going to fall into place again. It doesn’t work that way. I felt like everybody expected me to do better. I started to put pressure on myself. I should have known better than that.”

Says Lansford, who found the situation slightly familiar to his own years ago: “Dale’s from Cheraw, S.C., and even though he did play at a major college program, the pressure he had to endure after his first year (with the Rams) was kind of overbearing.”

Already, Hatcher has reached an earlier goal, mainly to begin the season with an average of 45 yards or better. And he says he corrected a case of “lazy ankle,” which is nothing more than failing to punt the ball with a straight, extended foot.

“Everybody expects you to make the Pro Bowl every year,” he says. “I’d love to do that. It’s not like I’m not trying. But I’m not going to worry about it. I know now that I have my confidence back and my leg feels as good as it ever has.”

For the Rams, desperate for encouraging news, Hatcher and Lansford will have to do. After the loss to the Oilers, there’s not much choice.

Ram Notes Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Miriam Vogel made a preliminary ruling

Thursday regarding a $12.5-million lawsuit brought by Eric Dickerson against his former agent, Jack Rodri. Details of the ruling, which will decide if the case is argued before a designated NFL Players Assn. arbitrator or before a court, were not made public.

The Rams needed to sell about 8,500 tickets for Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings at Anaheim Stadium to avert a blackout. They didn’t come close. As of Thursday afternoon, 6,197 tickets remained . . . Add running back Charles White (calf) to the Ram injury list. He is listed as probable for the Viking game, as is Kevin Greene (virus) and Carl Ekern (knee). Ron Brown (hip pointer) and Cliff Hicks (shoulder) are considered questionable. Brown didn’t practice in pads Thursday, “but he was close to it today,” said Coach John Robinson. “I think he’ll practice (Friday) and I’ll think he’ll play Sunday, but we’ve got to see him run.” . . . Quarterback Doug Gaynor, a second-year player from Cal State Long Beach, was given a tryout. He was recently released by the Cincinnati Bengals, who selected him in the fourth round of the 1986 draft.