Lansford Agrees to 2-Year Deal Reportedly Worth $610,000

Rams kicker Mike Lansford ended months of anxiety Thursday evening when he signed a two-year contract worth a reported $610,000.

Details of the deal were not announced, but Lansford reportedly will receive a $25,000 signing bonus this season, a salary of $275,000 and $310,000 in 1990. He could earn another $60,000 per season in incentives.

Lansford, a free agent, reported to camp in July after signing a temporary one-year contract at last year’s salary of $195,000, with a promise from management that the real deal would be worked out later. Well, later stretched to Oct. 19. Lansford, who has made 12 of 14 field goal attempts this season, was so frustrated by the delay that he was ready to walk into Ram Vice President John Shaw’s office Thursday and discuss the matter.

Lansford’s agent, Leigh Steinberg, talked him out of it.

“I didn’t think it was necessary here,” Steinberg said. “John (Shaw) had been dealing in good faith, and we were close to getting it done.”

Lansford said it was a gamble signing the temporary deal, but it seemed to work in his favor. He’s off to his best start in years and his game-winning, 26-yard field goal against the 49ers on Oct. 1 certainly didn’t hurt negotiations.

Lansford’s contract puts him in the second tier of kickers behind the big three: Morten Andersen, Nick Lowery and Gary Anderson. New Orleans kicker Andersen, Lansford’s longtime rival and this week’s opponent, set the scale for kickers this season when he signed a four-year deal worth $2 million.

Lansford, in fact, was on the phone to Steinberg in Berkeley just before the Bay Area earthquake struck Tuesday. Steinberg said he decided at the last minute not to attend Game 3 of the World Series at Candlestick Park, but had he gone, he would have been on the Oakland Bay Bridge at the time of the quake. A section of the bridge collapsed.