Rams Prepared to Lose Reed if He Doesn’t Sign : NFL: If defensive lineman doesn’t accept contract offer, club says he won’t be on list of 37 protected players, thus missing $150,000 bonus.
As the Rams get ready to do major reconstructive surgery on their defense, unsigned defensive lineman Doug Reed apparently will be the first player to feel the cut.
In what they say is an effort to avoid another bitter, drawn-out holdout that lasts into August, the Rams have told Reed that if he doesn’t accept their contract proposal by today’s Plan B deadline, he will not be on the list of 37 players the team is allowed to protect. If that happens, Reed would be denied a $150,000 bonus written into his last contract.
And if he is left unprotected, the Rams say they are prepared to lose Reed, an eight-year veteran who might not fit into the plans of new defensive coordinator Jeff Fisher.
Reed said there is no way that strong-arm tactics will change his salary demands, and that once he is left unprotected, he will be happy to join a team willing to make more of a financial commitment instead of locking him into contract battles year after year.
After a bitter holdout, Reed signed a one-year, $400,000 deal last September that included a clause that would pay him $150,000 if the Rams protected him this February. He and the Rams have exchanged salary proposals and are not close to an agreement, according to both sides.
“I think I’m a good player, and I think there’s someone out there that can use my services,” said Reed, 30. “It’s not to the point where I feel like I’m old and washed up or anything like that. I still feel I’ve got a lot of good years left. Someone’s going to acquire a good player.
“I think it’ll be a great opportunity for me. I’ve always had problems with (the Ram front office) in the past, and I feel if that’s what they want to do, I sure will go out there and test the market.”
One of the keys to last year’s deal was the $150,000 bonus clause. Reed and his agent, Peter Funsten, say the main reason the Rams aren’t protecting Reed is to avoid paying the bonus and to bully him into signing a contract he doesn’t want.
Executive Vice President John Shaw, while conceding the $150,000 had something to do with the decision, said Thursday that Coach John Robinson wanted to know early if Reed was going to be signed or if there was going to be a contract problem again.
After coming in so late last year, Reed never adapted to the team’s new defensive system, which was abandoned after four games. The Rams will again be implementing a drastically different defense, and Shaw said that another extended holdout by Reed would severely diminish his worth to the team.
“The coach’s view was to try to get him signed this week,” Shaw said, “and if there was an impression that this was going to be another long holdout, protecting him would be more detrimental than anything.
“If we were going to expend the bonus, it was our thinking that we would also like to have him signed and have the commitment from him to be in condition and learning the new defense all year.”
Players left off a team’s protected list are free to negotiate with any team from Feb. 1 to April 1. If a player doesn’t sign with another team by April 1, his rights return to his old club under his old contract terms.
But Funsten doesn’t expect it to go that far, given the usual dearth of starting defensive linemen available in Plan B, Reed’s moderate salary last season and his relative health and youth.
“I don’t think he’ll be back with the Rams,” Funsten said.
Shaw said the Rams accepted that probability.
“He’s a starting defensive end who’s been here nine years, we’ve had tremendous expectations for him and he’s a player we feel is an average to above-average defensive lineman,” Shaw said. “We tried to pay the full market value for him, but I guess we disagree on what that is.”
That financial consideration, coupled with the notion that Reed doesn’t quite fit into Fisher’s four-man-line, quarterback-hunting system, apparently made Reed expendable.
As a read-and-react end the past four seasons under former coordinator Fritz Shurmur, Reed registered eight sacks. But Reed says he feels he can play either end or tackle in a four-man line.
“(Fisher and Robinson) feel that I can fit in the system, but this is one thing they can’t control, the negotiation part of the deal,” Reed said. “I’m just taking each day as it comes, day by day. I’m not worried about the Rams or what they’re going to do.
“I’ve dealt with these guys a number of times, and they always jerk me around to make me worry, and I’m not going to worry.”
While the Rams are certain to expose other longtime starters such as kicker Mike Lansford and center Doug Smith because of their age or a belief that other teams will not be interested, Reed is a player who should receive plenty of attention.
“Defensive linemen aren’t usually available in Plan B, so I’m sure Doug will get a lot of interest,” Funsten said.
Other Rams likely to be left off the protected list include punter Keith English, safety Vince Newsome, cornerback Bobby Humphery and tight end Pete Holohan.
Ram Notes
The Rams are expected to name Gunther Cunningham their defensive line coach sometime in the next few days. Defensive coordinator Jeff Fisher said he is comfortable with Cunningham, who coached the San Diego Chargers’ defensive line last season. “He’s that kind of aggressive guy,” Fisher said. “We’ll work fine together. He had that kind of defensive line in San Diego--attacking.”