Rams No Longer on Lott’s Wish List : Football: Agent says standout safety is considering signing with Raiders, Vikings or staying with the 49ers.
A longshot from the beginning, the Rams’ tentative pursuit of Plan B free-agent Ronnie Lott came to a predictable end Thursday when Lott eliminated the Rams from his short list of consideration.
According to his agent, Lott, a shoo-in Hall of Fame safety for the San Francisco 49ers who was left unprotected because of his age and salary, has narrowed his choices to signing with either the Los Angeles Raiders or the Minnesota Vikings, or staying with the team he has helped to four Super Bowl championships.
The agent, Leonard Armato, said Lott would decide by the weekend. There have been reports that Lott is close to signing a partly guaranteed, two-year deal worth more than $2 million with the Raiders, but as of Thursday, there was no confirmation.
Ram officials were originally intrigued by the possibility of getting Lott, a longtime nemesis, and thought the lure of returning to play for his college coach, John Robinson, might do the trick. A few weeks ago, Lott told Robinson and defensive coordinator Jeff Fisher, with whom Lott played at USC, that he was very interested in the Rams.
But a combination of Lott’s uncertainty about how he would fit into the Rams’ new defensive system and the Rams’ edginess about handing a 31-year-old safety with nagging injuries a chunk of guaranteed money killed any hope of a deal.
Members of the Rams’ front office never were too excited about Lott, and the specter of signing Lott to a million-dollar-a-year contract while cornerback Jerry Gray remained unsigned--and certain to want to top anything Lott got--apparently was not pleasing to them.
“Luckily, safety is one position we’re pretty well set, talent-wise,” Fisher said Thursday after hearing about Lott’s decision to bypass the Rams. “Ronnie and I talked about the strong safety position, playing more around the line of scrimmage as opposed to playing back in the middle. We feel Pat Terrell is going to be a fine free safety.
“Maybe Ronnie wanted to play back over the middle, roam the deep zone like he’s been doing with the 49ers. There’s also some considerations that this is a very complex scheme to learn, and strong safety is probably the most difficult job in the secondary.”
Ram notes
In other Plan B activity, the Rams on Thursday signed former Dolphin cornerback Rodney Thomas and appeared to be close to deals with linebackers Ricky Shaw of the Eagles and Bobby Houston of the Falcons.
Thomas, a fourth-year player from Brigham Young, will be given a shot to start at cornerback, and either Shaw or Houston--or both--could find their way into the Rams’ linebacking lineup.
“Rick Shaw and Bobby Houston are people who can come in and shore up the outside linebacking position for us, and that would release some of the draft pressure we have at that position,” defensive coordinator Jeff Fisher said.
The Rams have fallen out of the picture in the chase for Eagle free safety Terry Hoage, who played for Fisher in Philadelphia and could have been a practical coach-on-the-field for the Rams. Hoage is on the verge of receiving a $150,000 signing bonus and two-year deal with the Phoenix Cardinals.
Other defensive players the Rams are pursuing as the April 1 Plan B deadline approaches include: Dolphin middle linebacker Mike Reichenbach, Charger cornerback Sammy Lilly, and Bear linebacker Glenell Sanders.
Defensive lineman Derrick Carr, just signed this month after spending 12 weeks last season on the team’s developmental squad, blew out a knee in his first workout at Rams Park recently and is out for the 1991 season.