Johnson Learns NFL’s Tough Lessons : Rams: Robinson knows what Cowboy coach is going through. He experienced the same thing when he left USC.

John Robinson, the former BCOC (Big Coach on Campus), remembers his first year as Ram coach and empathizes with Dallas’ Jimmy Johnson, this week’s opposing coach and this season’s favorite punching bag.

When Robinson joined the Rams in 1983, one holdover assistant coach told him point-blank that the power-blocking schemes he used at USC wouldn’t work in the National Football League.

“It was just this thing, ‘You don’t understand the NFL,’ ” Robinson said.

Robinson remembers veteran guard Dennis Harrah stalking after him following team meetings, pleading with the new coach to change his crazy blocking philosophies.

Robinson didn’t listen.

“We did use that blocking scheme,” he said. “Now we had a pretty good guy running (in Eric Dickerson), but he ran through some holes, too.”

In six years with the Rams, Robinson has produced five 1,000-yard rushing seasons and one 2,000-yard effort from the tailback position.

Robinson’s point is that jumping feet-first into the league as the perceived slick-haired, hot-shot college coach isn’t quite as easy as preparing for, say, Northwestern. Serious heat is to be expected. He wants Johnson to know that he knows.

Their careers, in fact, offer interesting parallels. Robinson came to the NFL from USC, where he was a successful coach at an urban school in a pro football town.

Johnson went to the NFL this year after posting a 52-9 record in five seasons at the University of Miami, another urban school in a pro football city.

Both coaches took over losing franchises in the NFL. The Rams were 2-7 in 1982, the Cowboys 3-13 in 1988. Both had top draft choices from which to build, the Rams taking Dickerson with the second pick of 1983, the Cowboys choosing quarterback Troy Aikman with last year’s first choice.

And Johnson is certainly taking his share of first-year lumps, especially from longtime NFL establishment-types such as Philadelphia’s Buddy Ryan, who has ridiculed Johnson at every turn, most recently claiming after a 27-0 victory over the Cowboys that Johnson’s was the worst-prepared team he’d ever faced.

It was Ryan, too, who warned Johnson that there were no East Carolinas on the schedule in this league.

“It was to be expected,” Johnson said this week of the comments, “as far as a young coach coming into the NFL (is concerned) and with the success we had at Miami. A lot of people are relishing us having problems now, but that’s human nature. A lot of times, people like to build themselves up with the misery of others.”

A 1-11 season could be considered miserable, although Johnson says he has never looked back at the fast times in Miami.

“I knew exactly what I was leaving,” he said. “And I knew I was going into some difficult times, but I think now people understand why I made the statement I made when I accepted the job--that it really wasn’t a decision; it was something I had to do. I knew I’d accomplished all that I set out to accomplish at the University of Miami, and it was time to take a new challenge and go to another level, even though there were going to be some difficult times.”

Robinson received some strange glares, too, during his first season, but turned them around quickly with his 9-7 record and a trip to the playoffs. Robinson said he may have had an edge on Johnson because he’d spent one season in the NFL as an assistant coach with the Oakland Raiders in 1975. Let new coaches beware: It’s a jungle out here.

“There’s kind of a dogged tenacity you have to have,” Robinson said. “I mean you’ve just got to hang in there. You’ve got to set a plan, hang in there and keep it going, see it fail, fight through it and see it succeed.”

This, while the rest of the league harpoons fresh-faced coaches like fish in a barrel.

“If you’re dumb, they get you,” Robinson said. “That’s probably the most intimidating thing about the league. If you’re weak somewhere, you’ve got to correct that weakness fast, or they’re coming after you. But that’s the best part of it. I wouldn’t trade coaching in the NFL.

“I wouldn’t go back to college, the game part of college football, for anything. The games are so much more exciting in terms of what it takes to win. I’m not talking about the hoopla. I mean the difference between the Rams and Saints is pretty small.”

Johnson is finding out the hard way about league competition. The Cowboys rank 25th in total offense and 26th in defense. Johnson has already lost more games this season than in five seasons as the Hurricanes’ coach. And the only “East Carolinas” on the schedule this year call Texas Stadium home.

“I guess you might say the soft spots right now are the opposing teams looking at Dallas,” Johnson said.

The rise of Aikman and the trade of Herschel Walker for draft choices has solidified the Cowboys’ future, according to Johnson, who added: “I knew I was going to a last-place club. I knew there weren’t going to be any quick-fixes.”

Despite Dallas’ record, Robinson tends to agree. But coaching and playing are just part of it. A former college coach’s ego must also be reckoned with in a league where the company line is often, “Just follow orders, baby.”

“You don’t have the power you had in college,” Robinson said. “If you’re good in college, you’re the most powerful guy there. The president doesn’t tell you what to do, the athletic director doesn’t tell you what to do. You’re kind of a king. There aren’t many jobs in this league where you’re king. There’s an owner sitting there who may want you to run right, or a general manager who may not have wanted you in the first place.”

So Jimmy Johnson’s longest season continues against the Rams Sunday in Dallas, before he closes out the schedule against the Eagles, the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers.

Nary a win can be found. Is Johnson ready for 1-15?

Last year, the then-Miami coach and his staff visited Robinson at Ram training camp in Fullerton.

Said Johnson: “He could have given me a little bit more insight about what I might be getting into.”

Ram Notes

The Rams are listing wide receiver Henry Ellard as doubtful for Sunday’s game. “And we mean doubtful,” Coach John Robinson said, clarifying any confusion about the injury report last week, when Ellard was listed as probable, then didn’t play. . . . Tailback Greg Bell has been suffering back spasms, but he’s probable. . . . Cornerback Cliff Hicks is questionable with a knee strain. . . . Robinson said the pass play called on the third-and-inches situation near the goal line against New Orleans, which resulted in a four-yard sack, belongs in “the Hall of Play-Calling Shame.” . . . If the Rams win three of their last four games, they’re almost assured of a playoff spot at 11-5. They would only be eliminated in a three-way tie involving Philadelphia and Green Bay.