Bell Opens Round One : As Rams’ Mini-Camp Starts, Running Back Takes Some Jabs at Management

File this under new seasons, new tailbacks, new controversies, new holdouts. Eric Dickerson is only a memory, but the concept lives on in Anaheim, where the Rams open mini-camp today without leading rusher Greg Bell, who is laying the groundwork--”If I was in Buffalo, I’d probably be making a million a year”--for one hot summer of No. 42.

The season opener, remember, is Sept. 10 at Atlanta, but don’t be shocked if Bell isn’t on the midnight plane to Georgia.

So what makes for a really good holdout? Two sides that are absolutely rooted in their principles of rightness--and can present convincing cases. Also, it helps if the player involved is articulate, educated and loose-lipped.

Welcome to Greg Bell vs. Rams Management. Gentlemen, start your engines. . . .

“Eventually, Georgia (Frontiere, Ram owner) is going to get tired of being second best,” Bell said last week. “I don’t know if I’ll be here when she’s tired of being second best. I don’t know if you’ll be writing when she’s tired of being second best.

“Al Davis doesn’t want to be second best. He always wants to be first class, and first in line. That’s the way he wants to live his life. Same thing with Jerry Buss. You’re talking about championship ball clubs. Right now, in L.A., the Rams are very nonexistent.”

More gunfire later, but first some background. The Rams, you’ll recall, reluctantly took over payments on Bell when the Buffalo Bills wanted to unload him as part of the Dickerson trade in 1987. Bell was a talented but mysterious runner--a former first-round pick and 1,000-yard rusher--who had free-fallen from grace in Buffalo.

The Rams took him aboard with no guarantees; in fact his chances of making last year’s roster seemed slim after the Rams selected tailback Gaston Green with their first pick in 1988. The Rams told Bell as much. They offered a take-it-or-leave-it, one-year contract at $300,000 for 1988.

Bell wanted to leave it, but said the Rams refused his many requests for a trade before training camp.

You know the rest of the story: Bell came to camp, won the starting tailback job from Charles White and Green, then made the Rams look like geniuses. He finished the season as the National Football League’s fourth-leading rusher with 1,212 yards, trailing only the millionaire rushing firm of Dickerson, (Herschel) Walker, and (Roger) Craig. Bell also led the NFL with 18 touchdowns despite not starting three games (CD: coach’s decision).

Ram Coach John Robinson wasn’t always enamored with his new runner, though he finally asked late last season that we all accept Greg Bell for what he’d done. It was a compliment.

So guess who wants a raise? And deserves one. The Rams are offering Bell a two-year deal with base salaries of $400,000 with a chance to make an extra $150,000 per season in incentives.

The problem is that Bell wants about twice as much in base salaries.

“If you measured a football field as the distance of being apart, we’re 10 football fields apart,” Bell’s agent, Kathy Clements, said this week.

The battle lines have been drawn, and it’s not a pretty picture. Bell appears ready to sit out the summer to make a stand.

“I know I’m not going to Tokyo,” he said, referring to the team’s overseas exhibition opener against San Francisco Aug. 5. “I don’t mind not being in camp. If I have to wait until September to walk in here, that’s the toll I’m prepared to go.”

To prove he’s serious about his football and future, Bell has been working out at a fever pitch down at Rams Park. He’s dropped 10 pounds in the off-season and has never been in better shape.

He’s gambling that the Rams need an experienced fish in a sea of youthful runners, and that the team has finally grown tired of grueling contract negotiations and second-place finishes.

“The Rams will consistently win 10, 11 games a season,” Bell said. “But will you hear from them? For many years, the Rams have been eating half the pie. It takes a whole pie to fill you up.”

Bell insists he’s not being unreasonable. In fact, he maintains he’s a regular blue-light special.

“I’m not asking for the moon,” he said. “Just pay me what the market says I deserve to be paid. . . . The market would say I deserve $900,000 to $950,000 a season. What I’m asking for is below market.”

Bell bases his numbers on Dickerson’s salary of $1.4 million per season and Bell being the fourth-leading rusher in the league last season.

Of course, the Rams haven’t always paid attention to market prices. And while they don’t discuss negotiations publicly, their feelings toward Bell seem clear enough: They would argue that they plucked Bell from the ashes of Buffalo and possibly saved his career. They would argue he thrived in the John Robinson system, running behind one of the NFL’s best offensive lines.

They would argue that Bell is hardly comparable to Dickerson, who was the Ram offense during four-plus seasons. They could argue that several talented runners (Green, Robert Delpino, Cleveland Gary) are standing in line to pick up the slack.

Bell said he’s not disturbed that the Rams recently used yet another first-round choice on a runner.

“Cleveland Gary I don’t think is going to go out and do the things I do on the field,” Bell said. “When I was in Buffalo, the next year they went out and picked Ronnie Harmon, and everyone knows what kind of a pick that was. . . . They wanted a big, inside runner who can catch the ball. He (Gary) has done some great things in college. A lot of guys do great things in college.”

But the Rams, of course, can play hardball with the best pitchers. They waited out a two-game Dickerson holdout in 1985. They froze Henry Ellard out for seven games in 1986. Last year, they squashed receiver Ron Brown, who retired in frustration only to return later in the season on the team’s financial terms.

So what makes Greg Bell so different? It’s true, as Bell said, the Rams softened their hard-line negotiating stance last season when it was important to facilitate the signing of the draft picks acquired for Dickerson.

But they can still make it hard on individual players, and very much control Bell’s rights under the present laws of NFL “free” agency.

If they so chose, the Rams could decide not to deal with Bell at all, still retain his rights, and make him sit out the season.

“If that happens, then Greg Bell will do just like John Shaw,” Greg Bell said of the Rams’ vice president, who has given most negotiating responsibilities over to Jay Zygmunt. “I’ll just use my brain. His brain isn’t any more intelligent than mine is. I went to college. I worked just as hard as he has. I’ve worked on my MBA as hard as he has. I could go into junk bonds and make five billion dollars. I think I can go out and live comfortably.”

He may get the chance to find out, especially if Bell continues comparing the standard to certain rival owners.

“It all boils down to do you want to wear a ring,” Bell said. “Teams that are gung-ho toward keeping unity and paying properly are the teams that are wearing rings. You can look at Al Davis and say, ah, he wastes money, but every time Al looks down he sees those rings on his fingers. . . . It’s the same thing (San Francisco owner Edward) DeBartolo says. They conquered the ‘80s. The 49ers have two quarterbacks who make a million each, and one sits on the bench. There’s no dissension at all. But from the day I walked into our locker room, the one thing I saw was dissension. When I walked in here, it was Eric and LeRoy (Irvin). Last summer, it was the whole defensive line.”

Next up appears to be Greg Bell.

Mini-camp Notes

Veteran linebacker Carl Ekern, recently asked by the Rams to retire after 13 seasons, will stay on with the team as a volunteer coach. “We’ve obviously got a full coaching staff already,” Ekern said. “So I’m just helping out. It’ll be a heck of a learning experience for me.” Defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur has called Ekern the smartest player he’s ever coached. Ekern, 35, admits he’s also hanging around in case of emergency. “It’s 99% true that I’m probably done playing,” he said. “But you never know. If something catastrophic were to happen, they might try to dig up some old bones.”

Quarterback Jim Everett is entering the last year of his contract, which will pay him $450,000 this season. The Rams and Everett’s agent, Marvin Demoff, will quietly attempt to work out a renegotiation during the season. . . . Despite three consecutive Pro Bowl appearances, safety Jerry Gray will earn only $250,000 this season. Gray said progress is being made toward renegotiation and he will attend practices this week. And so will receiver Ron Brown, who is without a contract. . . . Though cornerback LeRoy Irvin’s contract runs through 1990, he said last week that 1989 will likely be his last season. . . . The mini-camp runs through Thursday.