COMMENTARY : In Any Language, English Is Not a Kicker

This was no time for a lecture on Remedial Kickoff Techniques--the middle of the second quarter in the second game of the season--but to John Robinson, it was as good a time as any. So he grabbed a football, laid it on its side on a tee and tried to dramatize the finer points of the squib kick.

Ram punter Keith English, attempting to walk a mile in Mike Lansford’s shoe, looked, listened and took a glance at the pad-popping action swirling all around him.

“Coach,” English finally asked, “is this what’s known as ‘on the job training?’ ”

It was all of that and less. English, a punter by trade, a punter for life, had watched a lot of kickoffs in his day, but never saw any need to try one. Not in high school. Not in college. Jim Everett had kicked off as often.

But English was thrown into the breech Sunday when Lansford’s right Achilles’ tendon made a funny noise on the opening play of the game. Pop went the ball, pop went the ankle. “I thought he ruptured it,” Robinson said in horror. When it turned out to be a strain, Robinson uncrossed his fingers, but decided not to push his luck.

Minutes later, English was standing on the Rams’ 35-yard line, wearing one white shoe and one blue one. The blue shoe was the kicking shoe, which English could tell from the squared-off toe. “I think they got it out of the vault from the 1956 championship game,” English said. It was also a size 11. English wears a size 13.

So it was a painful experience all around. It hurt English to kick, and it hurt Robinson to watch.

English looked as if he was kicking in an elevator shaft. Straight up, straight down. English’s first attempt coughed and wheezed all the way to the Tampa Bay 19-yard line. His second touched down on the Buccaneer 18. Both could have invoked the infield fly rule.

Robinson thought he was watching a Punt, Pass and Kick undercard. Mike McDonald, the Rams’ long-snap specialist, thought he was watching an old newsreel.

“I was yelling, ‘Jim Bakken, Jim Bakken,’ ” McDonald said with the laugh. “He looked like Lou Groza, except Lou was a little heavier.”

Finally, Robinson summoned English to his side for a little show-and-tell.

“English was having trouble with my English,” Robinson quipped. “I told him, ‘Just kick it on the ground,’ and he said, ‘Oh yeah, I can do it.’ All of the sudden, he’s popping them up in the air.

“So we laid the ball on its side and went from there. I wanted some hard groundballs that were hard to field. I wanted to get a knuckleball down there.”

Instead, English came up with an eephus pitch. His third kick was just as high as the others, only shorter.

It landed on the Tampa Bay 27.

“I guess I’m just used to kicking the ball in the air,” English said.

Fortunately, the Rams’ fourth touchdown came on Bobby Humphery’s interception return on the last play of the first half.

When Robert Delpino caught a 42-yard scoring pass from Everett in the third quarter for the Rams’ final touchdown, Lansford was sent out, gingerly, for his team’s last kickoff of the game.

“It was either that or kick the ball out of the bounds and let them start at the 35,” Robinson said. “Or, I was going in there.”

On a day on which the Rams won easily, 35-14, a lesson was gained at little expense. Had Robinson known then what he knows now, he would have kept English quarantined until fourth downs.

“You think I’m an idiot?” Robinson said.

Lansford had no words of advice for poor English. “That’s a conflict of interest, I think,” he said. But he did talk Robinson into letting him try two field goals, including a 49-yarder that traveled only 47.

“A typical Lansford con job,” Lansford said, laughing. “I told him I couldn’t run up and plant on kickoffs, but I could walk up and do it on field goals. I basically convinced him I could do it.

“And I would have,” Lansford added with a smile. “Bad snap.”

Lansford’s other attempt, a 36-yarder, was blocked.

Good thing the Rams only needed extra points.

“A close game would have been scary,” Robinson said. “But that’s part of the deal. You lose a kicker or a center. . . . I once lost a national championship at USC because I lost five centers in six days.

“Losing a specialty type player, a kicker, is like losing two quarterbacks. In one game.”

Lansford’s injury wasn’t a new one. He first hurt it two weeks ago while messing around running pass patterns in practice, which offers another lesson. Punters shouldn’t kick off and kickers shouldn’t catch passes.

Lansford said he felt a pop as soon as he landed after delivering Sunday’s game-opening kickoff. Robinson felt a different sensation, that of watching a season spiral down the drain.

“My first thought was more self-centered than that,” Lansford said. “The broad scope of the thing, I have to admit, was not the first thing on my mind.”

For the Rams, kicks just keep getting harder to find. If Lansford can’t tee it up Sunday, what is to become of Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood? You know it won’t be English.

“I just wanted to punch it down the field,” English said by way of sign-off. “Nothing extraordinary, which is exactly what I did.”

But when you employ unskilled labor, you generally get what you pay for.

“Those were the first, second and third kickoffs of my career,” English said. “And, hopefully, my last.”