Kiam Juggling Pieces to Reassemble Patriots : Football: The general manager’s and coach’s tenure are up in the air as New England’s owner talks to Miami AD.

Sam Jankovich may be coming, Pat Sullivan may be staying and New England Patriots Coach Rod Rust says he doesn’t worry if he’s going.

They are the pieces in the puzzle Victor Kiam is trying to put together to get the team he owns out of its current mess.

Kiam wants Jankovich, athletic director at the University of Miami, to become the Patriots’ director of operations. Sullivan, whose contract as general manager runs through 1996, could stay on in a reduced role. The three are scheduled to meet in New York today.

“I think the next step is for Pat Sullivan to sit down with Jankovich and find out if they can work together,” according to a source quoted in today’s Boston Globe. “Once that is done, the deal should be done fairly quickly.”

Meantime, the Boston Herald reported Jankovich might try to persuade Hurricanes Coach Dennis Erickson to join him in trying to rebuild the Patriots. Erickson and Jankovich have been together both at Montana State and Washington State before their latest teaming at Miami.

Rust has three years left on his four-year contract. The Patriots are 1-13 in his first season after losing their 12th consecutive game last Saturday, 25-10, to the Washington Redskins.

Rust, 62, said Monday he doesn’t let speculation about his future affect the way he does his job.

“Career-wise and job-wise I came to peace with all that stuff many years ago,” he said. “Having done that, (the speculation) really has a very minimal effect on how I go about my daily chores.”

Kiam has talked with Jankovich about giving Jankovich total control over club operations, including the power to hire a new coach, the Globe reported Monday.

The Boston Herald reported Monday that Kiam had offered Jankovich $3.5 million over five years.

“Sam hasn’t demanded that Pat be fired, but he has told Victor Kiam he would like to start with a clean slate,” the Herald quoted a source close to Jankovich as saying.

The remaining six years on Sullivan’s contract are worth $2.7 million, the Herald said. The contract says he can’t be fired unless certain provisions are violated; none have been, the paper added.