The Patriots Need a Leader, Not a Leaner : Football: Sam Jankovich is a great administrator, but what the team needs is an experienced, hands-on football expert.

Take the most incompetent lame-brains you’ve ever met and hire them to run the Patriots. They couldn’t make a bigger mess of it than the current collection of empty suits.

Even if he turns out to be Sam the Sham, Sam Jankovich enters a no-lose situation. He could make Irving Fryar head coach and put Marla Maples in charge of player personnel and still finish better than 1-15.

But why hire Jankovich? Sure, he built some nice buildings, raised a lot of money and revived the basketball program as athletic director at the University of Miami, but the guy has made his mark as an administrator, not as a football guy. And if the Patriots are going to turn things around before the end of the century, they need an experienced, hands-on football guy.

So why was owner Victor Kiam so hot to hire him? Because Kiam’s Miami-based pal, Eagles owner Norman Braman--who hasn’t won anything but his players’ dislike--kept touting Jankovich to him. Kiam was so snowed he didn’t even interview anybody else for the job. It’s not what you know, it’s who.

Too bad. The Redskins’ Joe Gibbs would have been a wonderful choice, and Giants Coach Bill Parcells or Rams Coach John Robinson wouldn’t have been bad, either. These are guys who know how to build a winning team, and all three might have been available if granted the sweeping powers Kiam is guaranteeing Jankovich in writing.

The only thing that will turn around the Patriots is if they get better players, lots of them. And who now holds the ultimate authority over player personnel? A 56-year-old guy who has no NFL experience, a guy who hasn’t coached football since he was defensive coordinator at Washington State from 1968 to ’71.

Aren’t you impressed? Kiam is going to pay Jankovich about $2.5 million over the next five years, and Jankovich may not know if player personnel director Joe Mendes is picking the next Marcus Allen or Woody Allen.

At Thursday afternoon’s stadium news conference to introduce Jankovich, Kiam stressed repeatedly: “We really needed a strong hand on the tiller to bring all the parts back together.”

But how strong can Jankovich’s hand be if he’s a babe in the NFL woods at judging players?

This isn’t to say the Patriots won’t improve under Jankovich. How could they not? But Thursday afternoon, Jankovich repeatedly invoked the names of scouts Bill McPeak and Bucko Kilroy as guys whose knowledge he’ll be leaning on. The Patriots need a leader, not a leaner.

Since it’s impossible to turn the Patriots into a Super Bowl contender by next season, the next best thing Jankovich can do is fire colorless Rod Rust, who has two years remaining on his three-year, $1.2-million contract, and hire a dynamic head coach.

Jankovich said Rust’s fate won’t be decided until after the season, but you can bet Rust is history. Rust is a victim of circumstance, but he is also a victim of his own dullness and disorganization. Defensive coordinator Charlie Sumner quit two weeks ago because of Rust’s disorganization and his monkeying with Sumner’s defense. To keep Rust around sends the wrong signal.

By all accounts, Jankovich is a nice guy, a classy guy who has some experience at trying to repair negative images. During Jankovich’s early years at Miami, the Hurricanes favored camouflage fatigues and were, in the immortal words of wide receiver Michael Irvin, “No. 1 UPI, No. 1 FBI.” Notre Dame’s “Catholics vs. Convicts” T-shirts are still big sellers, but Jankovich and the coaches he hired, most recently Dennis Erickson, worked hard to improve Miami’s image. To the extent that a losing team can have a good image, perhaps the Patriots will prosper under Jankovich. The Lisa Olson incident, Fryar’s follies and Kiam’s clumsy handling of Tony Eason’s firing in 1989 are major embarrassments the club could do without.

Kiam defended his courtship of Jankovich rather than a Joe Gibbs-type by saying: “Sam is more well-rounded, he’s not a one-dimensional guy. If your organization’s headed by a guy who is just a judge of personnel, you’re not going to have a successful operation long-term.”

So what if Kiam’s logic is more twisted than an I-91 detour? It’s his money, his team, his choice. In introducing Jankovich, Kiam declared his hiring as CEO “a new era” in Patriots football.

“When Victor was introducing me,” Jankovich said, “I thought it was my obituary more than anything else.”

It just might be, Sam. It just might be.