RAMS : Ilesic Gets His Foot in the Door in Competition for Punting Job
After 13 seasons in the Canadian Football League, punter Hank Ilesic became a 30-year-old NFL rookie with San Diego last season. As a result, he says it was “my worst year ever in professional football.”
He averaged 40.1 yards on 76 punts, numbers that looked pretty good to the Rams, who had watched the alarmingly inconsistent Dale Hatcher stagger to his worst season in five years with the team.
The Rams left Hatcher unprotected and he ended up in Green Bay. San Diego left Ilesic unprotected and he’s now a Ram. So a couple of Plan Bs ended up with a chance to be somebody’s Plan A again.
Ilesic will be competing with rookie Kent Elmore, a seventh-round pick who averaged 40.2 yards at Tennessee, for the Rams’ job.
“I’m happy with the way both of them are kicking right now,” Coach John Robinson said Thursday, the last day of mini-camp at Rams Park. “Hank’s a good punter. He was under a lot of pressure (in San Diego). Things were falling apart in that area.”
Ilesic certainly got a club-on-the-head introduction to the NFL.
After playing two exhibition games and 10 regular-season games with the Toronto Argonauts last year, he got out of his contract and arrived in San Diego in time to have Kansas City Coach Marty Schottenheimer question the legality of his punting shoe. Ilesic had to cut off a flap that covered the laces. Still, he managed to average 44.8 yards on five punts in his NFL debut.
But the situation--not to mention the protection--quickly began to deteriorate.
Ilesic signed to play professional football as a 17-year-old senior at St. Joseph’s High School in Edmonton. He has six CFL championship Grey Cup rings locked in a safe deposit box at home in Toronto and two other times his team lost in the championship game.
He had grown accustomed to winning. Then the Chargers finished 6-10 last season, in last place in the AFC West.
Ilesic hasn’t been around Rams Park long, but he already is feeling more at home then he did in San Diego.
“The first thing you really notice is that the atmosphere in the locker room is very different on a winning team,” he said. “It’s much looser. You establish closer relationships with your teammates. You have fun. You enjoy being out here.
“I guess that’s because it’s a relatively more stable environment compared to a losing team, where you don’t know what’s going to happen today or tomorrow. You’re always looking over your shoulder and wondering, ‘Is it my fault we’re losing?’ There are fingers being pointed and that adds a lot of pressure.”
Ilesic, who averaged a career-high 48.5 yards per punt with Toronto in 1986, never had an average below 42.5 until last season. He said he succumbed to pressures, real and imagined.
“Last year was definitely a learning experience,” he said. “I had to learn the NFL game overnight. I had to learn the game on the field. I suppose that’s the fastest way to learn, but it’s certainly not the easiest.
“This year, I’m more settled down. And the blocking patterns are much different here than in San Diego. I never had one blocked last year, but I got a lot of pressure. My timing and rhythm were off and when you speed things up, mistakes are going to happen. Then you start thinking too much and begin to lose confidence.”
That was never a problem when he was known as “the Ray Guy of Canada,” or even when Toronto fans started calling him “Hank the Shank” during his attempts to wrangle out of his contract with the Argonauts.
After booming off a number of towering punts Thursday, Ilesic said he felt good about his chances of playing for the Rams.
“Competition brings the best out in me,” he said. “I think it’s necessary. It’s human nature to become complacent if you know the job is yours.”
If Hank Ilesic has learned anything about punting over the past 13 years, it’s that nothing in this business is certain. It’s a fickle game.
“You can be a hero one moment and a goat the very next,” he said.
And if you don’t believe him, just ask Dale Hatcher.
Ram Notes
Coach John Robinson said he doesn’t like to make evaluations based on performances in a four-day mini-camp, but he did say that he felt the key to the Rams’ success this season would be the development of a number of young players. “I think we’re going to be improved in a lot of areas on this team,” he said. “We have a lot of first- and second-year men that now have to assert themselves and become real players.” . . . Speaking of rookies, Robinson was impressed with what he saw of center Bern Brostek, the Rams’ No. 1 draft choice. “It usually takes offensive linemen a couple of years, but I think he will be able to help us this year,” he said. “We’ve brought him into a situation where we are very strong (center Doug Smith has been to six consecutive Pro Bowls), but I think he can play guard for us too.” . . . Robinson said he thought third-year running back Gaston Green, who has carried just 61 times for 190 yards in his career, is ready to make an impact. “He just seems more mature, both physically and mentally,” Robinson said. “I think he’ll be ready this year. It’s just an intuitive thing.”