Rams Retain Robinson as Coach : Football: Team announces he will continue next season in last year of contract and receive an extension.

John Robinson, rumored on his way out as head coach of the Rams during the team’s worst season since 1982, will return to the team next year, it was announced today.

Rams owner Georgia Frontiere announced that Robinson, in his eighth year as the team’s coach, will “continue as head coach of the Rams next year and into the future.”

Robinson, the winningest coach in the team’s history since succeeding the late Ray Malavasi after the Rams went 2-7 during the strike-interrupted 1982 season, is in the fourth year of a five-year contract. Frontiere said an extension of the contract will be negotiated during the off-season.

Robinson’s teams are 76-60, but the Rams are just 5-10 this year entering its regular-season finale Monday night at New Orleans. The Rams failed to qualify for the playoffs for only the second time in Robinson’s eight years as their head coach.

Only last year, the Rams went 11-5 and won playoff games on the road over Philadelphia and the New York Giants before losing to eventual Super Bowl champion San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game, 30-3.

“I have nothing but the deepest respect for John’s abilities, and I’m certain that he is just as committed as I am to bringing our fans a championship team next year,” Frontiere said in a press release.

In addition to announcing that Robinson will return as head coach, Frontiere said in the press release that provisions will be made for him to have greater input in the NFL draft and in the selection and signing of Plan B free agents.

In 1983, Robinson’s first year as head coach, the Rams were 9-7 and qualified for the playoffs as a wild-card team. They were 10-6 in 1984 and made it as a wild-card again.