Rams to Play for Themselves Since There Isn’t Much Else : Pro football: Players believe it is inevitable that Robinson will not be back next season.

No longer carrying the burden of playing to save their coach’s job--that disappeared a week ago--the Rams went back to work Wednesday determined to move on.

John Robinson called a team meeting in the morning, without inviting any other coaches, and although no one was saying what was discussed, the general mood afterward was unmistakable.

Quietly, the post-John Robinson era has all but officially begun. And the players know it.

“I think it’s inevitable,” linebacker Kevin Greene said. “It seems to me that something needs to be changed somewhere along the line. I’m just doing my job, playing my game, and moving from there.”

Last year, when rumors about Robinson’s weakened job security arose, a handful of players were upset by the talk and leaped to defend him. This year, after 11 losses in 14 weeks, the players have looked and decided not to leap.

Quarterback Jim Everett, a vocal Robinson supporter last year, has refused comment on the coach’s status the past few weeks.

After almost nine full seasons as their coach, Robinson’s last two games aren’t a last stand. They’re a slow-motion wave of farewell.

“It’s very difficult to watch him go through this,” right tackle Jackie Slater said.

“(It’s) as difficult as it was to watch Jim Everett when everybody was writing about him not throwing a touchdown pass as it has been to watch and listen to all the stuff surrounding Kevin Greene’s (reduced) sack situation.

“These guys are my teammates and coaches, and we try to spend a lot of time together trying to get things done as a team.

“It’s like picking out a part of the family and dropping them. It’s no difference with him than it would be with one of my teammates. You hate to see somebody you have to work with go through a trying time like this.”

For most of the Ram players, the goal for the last two weeks is to maintain their dignity and try to restore a portion of their lost pride.

If there was a rally for Robinson, it would have happened in the last two weeks, after he said that the staff would not be fired if the team showed any improvement at all. In the last two weeks, the Rams have been outscored, 58-20.

“I just think in order for us to leave with some sort of a sense of pride, we need to win these last two games,” cornerback Darryl Henley said. “Not necessarily just for him, but for us.

“We don’t know who’s going to be here, whether (Robinson) is going to be here or what. Like he told us, all of the stuff that was said, he said none of that stuff was true.

“Who knows? All we know is we’ve just got to try to win these next two games.”

Even with all that’s happening, the players struggled to maintain a sense of business as usual.

“It’s a little late to wait until the 15th, 16th week to say, ‘OK, well now I’m going to show I can play,’ ” Henley said. “I’m not going to change a thing of what I’ve been doing, not one single thing.

“Study on Wednesday and Thursday hard and long, just get prepared mentally Friday and Saturday, play Sunday.”

Said Slater: “Sure, we’ve got a lot of things happening, and there are a lot of things in the air. But one thing I have learned over the years, it doesn’t make any difference who the guy that lines up in front of me is, that guy has a primary motivation of making big plays, usually getting the quarterback.

“It can be embarrassing. I work real hard to try to make sure I try to stay focused, because you can end up flat embarrassed.

“Right now, I’m not even going to get into that. The fact of the matter is, we’ve got two more games to play, and we’ve got a head coach and he’s the skipper of this ship we’re on.

“And we’re going to do what we can do to play better than we’ve played the last few weeks and try to salvage some team pride and dignity.”

Interestingly, the Rams will finish the season against a couple of other teams involved in coaching upheavals--the Minnesota Vikings, whose coach, Jerry Burns, has announced his retirement at the end of the season, and the Seattle Seahawks, who apparently are ready to fire Chuck Knox.

Call it the lame-duck round-robin tournament.

Burns said he decided to announce his retirement before the season was over to quiet the speculation about him.

“I can understand what he’s saying,” Robinson said Wednesday. “You know, get it over with, leave me alone.”

The players were given Monday off--Robinson said he didn’t want to see them after their 31-14 defeat by the Atlanta Falcons--and practiced without pads Wednesday.

How do the players avoid being distracted by the experience of waiting for the ax to fall?

“Don’t give up, don’t turn it in, man,” Greene said. “Don’t pack your bags. Just keep playing hard.

“I’m excited about this game, actually. I like who we’re playing, I like going on the road, I’m excited about it. The season’s not over yet.”

Monday, Robinson sounded as though he was preparing to leave, reflecting on his 16 years as a head coach in Southern California in the past tense.

Wednesday, in a conference call with Minnesota reporters after meeting with his players, Robinson maintained that mood.

“Maybe it’s time to move on,” Robinson said, “but I’m just not sure whether that’s what I want to do. You lose some games, and the downward mood swings start. Then a couple of weeks go by, and you’re saying that you’re ready to go again.

“But you do go through those times where you wonder, ‘What have I done?’ Those are things that you think about when you’re staring at the ceiling. You can’t help it.”