Ryan Can See Pluses in Job Coaching Rams : Reaction: Leading candidate says he could deal with financial constraints. He’d just like commitment to winning.

He’s known for his bombast and bombshell attacks on just about anyone who gets in his way, but Buddy Ryan says there is no reason to believe a partnership between him and the bottom-line-conscious Ram management would be an explosion waiting to happen.

Ryan, the leading candidate in the Rams’ search to replace John Robinson, operated successfully under tight fiscal restraints when he coached the Philadelphia Eagles and emphasizes all he needs from ownership is a general commitment to winning.

“I’ve never been with a free-spending organization,” said Ryan, who was an assistant with the New York Jets, Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears and coach of the Eagles from 1986 through last year.

“You just have to work harder and hope if you really need somebody, you can go get him,” Ryan said. “I’ve sat at a table with Georgia (Frontiere, the Rams’ owner), and she seemed to me like she was excited about her football team, and I like that.”

One player Ryan coyly suggested going after if he was hired: “Jim McMahon, bring him in as a backup; that’d make that quarterback (Jim Everett) straighten out.”

Ryan, who has not yet been approached by the Rams, said that from the games he has seen the Rams play this year, there is no way the team should be 3-12.

“They’re not as bad as the team I inherited in Philadelphia,” Ryan said. “They’ve got a quarterback who two years ago could really throw and can be good again; they’ve got some talent in the defensive secondary.

“It shouldn’t take me near as long to turn them around as it did the Eagles, and we won the NFC East my third year.”

Ryan also had another thought: “If I got in there, you wouldn’t hear much about the Raiders anymore. I hear they get all the talk in L.A. Time to put Al Davis on the back page for a change.”