On Further Review, Slater Wants Another Season
Jackie Slater didn’t spend 16 years wrestling with 300-pound defensive linemen so he could walk away from football with cleatprints on his psyche. He might have decided to spend the fall of ’92 pass-blocking his sons on the lawn of his home in Orange, but the Rams’ pratfall in 1991 is driving Slater, 37, back to the playing field.
Nothing like a 10-game losing streak to make a guy want to feel what it’s like to win again.
“I’ve pretty much decided to try to play another year,” Slater, a seven-time Pro Bowl tackle, said Thursday. “And hopefully it will be (with the Rams).
“I was sitting home watching Atlanta being defeated by Washington in the playoffs, and I thought to myself, ‘(Atlanta) is a team we used to beat handily year after year, and all of sudden they’re beating us twice in the same year by the same score (31-14), which was an embarrassing score in my opinion.’
“It just lit a fire under me. I guess I was already leaning toward coming back, but seeing that game and realizing what I had experienced the last couple of years, well, I think I want it all to end up on a better note than that.”
Slater, who played his first two years in the league under Chuck Knox in 1976 and ‘77, says he is excited about the possibility of a reunion after Knox was named Ram coach Wednesday. Slater has yet to discuss the future with Knox but hopes to see him soon.
Slater completed the second year of a two-year, $1.6-million contract last season. The Rams probably will discuss a one-year deal with their longtime captain, but that decision will be up to Knox. The Rams will indicate on Feb. 1 if they still have an interest in Slater. That’s the day they must submit their list of protected players for Plan B.
The question now, though, is how much Slater can help the Rams rebound from last year’s 3-13 disaster. Age is a factor. Even so, Slater’s performance in ’91 generally was considered one of the team’s few bright spots.
“I’ve never wanted to be a guy who’s just hanging on. But as I analyze the way I played, I feel I played as well as anybody in the game, regardless of age. And I feel like I made a positive contribution to the football team.”
Slater may not be as quick as he was when Knox drafted him from Jackson State in the third round in 1976, but he’s a lot more polished.
“Obviously, he’ll be dealing with a player who’s a bit older,” Slater said, laughing. “He’ll look at the film and come to his own conclusions about how I’ve changed, but the one thing I remember about myself in ’76 and ’77 was that I was just learning to become a pro.
“Right now, I am a pro.”