Ryan Is Nobody’s Buddy

I have no idea whom the Rams will hire to succeed John Robinson as coach, but maybe it will be Buddy Ryan, who is, as some of you know, the Anti-Robinson. If so, fasten your seat belts, because it’s going to be a bumpy 1992.

If John Robinson ever drank a secret potion in a laboratory that totally altered his personality, he would be turned into Buddy Ryan. Louder, meaner, rougher, tougher, crude, coarse and semi-crazy.

Each of them has been referred to as a “players’ coach,” but that depends on your definition of character.

Robinson struck some people as a “players’ coach” because he was generally gentle, hands-on, avuncular, a strong but kind man, maybe to the point of mollycoddling, who believed in Better Football Through Inspiration.

Ryan struck some people--that could be the end of the sentence right there--as a “players’ coach” because with Philadelphia and Chicago he was a no-nonsense, non-negotiable, leather-necked, kick-fanny coach who couldn’t call half of his players by name and believed in Better Football Through Intimidation.

There is a tendency, in almost any field, to replace departing personnel with someone totally different, a complete opposite who will bring the organization whatever it has been missing.

When Notre Dame’s promotion of a high school football coach didn’t work out, the university went out and hired a man with experience in the NFL. Whenever the New York Yankees replaced Billy Martin, which was often, they usually brought in someone far more genteel, someone who brought along the promise of stability.

The Rams might be leaning this way. After Robinson coaches his final Ram game Sunday at Seattle, management will weigh the possibilities, which include the crusty, old, Patton-like Ryan; the equally old but far less mercurial Chuck Knox; the very young, precocious but is-he-ready-yet Jeff Fisher, and, of course, the man nobody has mentioned yet, Coach X, who could come out of the woodwork and surprise us all.

Knowing what the Rams intend to do is rarely easy, because in Georgia Frontiere and John Shaw they have an owner and general manager who do not feel it necessary to account at any time to the public, except with the product on the field.

Nowhere in America do the men and women who run professional sports teams, with the exception of Bruce McNall, keep a lower public profile than they do in Los Angeles and Orange County. At least when McNall’s hockey club hits a skid, the man stands up and absorbs some of the blame, even offering to abdicate some of his own authority.

When the Raiders find themselves so low on quality quarterbacks that they must start an NFL virgin in the 16th and most important game of the season, the owner or general manager (one and the same) never steps forward to explain why his coach cannot call on Steve Beuerlein instead.

And while the Ram coach is twisting in the wind, it is he who must publicly swallow most of the abuse for fielding a team that cannot rush the football, announcing his resignation on the very day Gaston Green is being awarded a trip to the Pro Bowl.

John Robinson did the best he could, and you will read no unkind word about him here. If mistakes were made, if the wrong people were played or traded, the mistakes were not his alone. Robinson is a stand-up guy and a well-liked human being, and for no man can there be higher praise.

I don’t know what the result will be if the Rams engage the services of Ryan, an individual so volatile that he once reportedly put a cash bounty on the heads of his opponents. I do know that Ryan’s men have always played extra hard for him, like troops trying to impress a menacing sergeant. Maybe the Rams need their faces slapped.

As an amateur, armchair analyst, I simply wish that somebody in this organization would finally quit believing that the quarterback position is settled. As thin as the Rams might be on defense, Jim Everett is not so wonderful that he can continue to start at quarterback without a challenge.

Like Robinson himself, Everett is a good guy who knows the game and has known success. But that doesn’t make him irreplaceable, any more than it did the coach.

Buddy Ryan?

Hire him, then stand back. A big Santa Ana wind will blow.

I suppose there is some nicer, smarter, kinder, gentler, calmer coach available somewhere, one who would make all of us, including the Rams, a whole lot less nervous.

But as long as you have to replace John Robinson with somebody, you might as well replace him with this Buddy. Angels haven’t had any luck in Anaheim lately. We might as well try dancing with a devil.