Odds Are Against the Rams

It seems a shame that the Rams figure to be 0-1 after one game.

Such a promising training camp it has been. You hate to see their first actual game be against a beast from the East.

Then again, who knows?

Maybe the Rams will have a big surprise for the Buffalo Super Bills in Sunday’s season opener.

Maybe the defense will chase Jim Kelly all the way to the Canadian border.

Maybe the offensive line will keep Bruce Smith as stationary as a man on a Stairmaster.

Maybe somebody will hide Thurman Thomas’ helmet.

Maybe the special teams will make Buffalo’s new kicker pull a Scott Norwood under pressure.

Maybe the Rams will be 1-0.

Buffalo has been known to lose a big game now and then.

Still, the ol’ schedule-maker didn’t give Georgia Frontiere’s frontiersmen much of a break, did he? (Or she.)

“It’s only natural to want to look good in the opener,” Coach Chuck Knox says. “But it’s more important how you look when the season is ending.”

Knox’s second honeymoon with the Rams is beginning near Niagara Falls.

Last time Knox left his job with the Rams, he took one coaching in Buffalo.

The Rams went right out in 1978 and won a dozen games, losing four. Knox’s Bills went 5-11.

“Not my favorite year,” Knox recalls.

Now the Rams are the ones who have fallen upon hard times, and Buffalo has become a dominant NFL force.

Game 1 of Knox Era II will take the team to the country’s far right hash mark to meet the Bills, who would like to end their season in January lined up wide to the left--at the Super Bowl in Pasadena.

Season openers do not bring out the best in the Rams--they have lost 10 of their last 17.

It’s the second week of the season when the Rams get their act together--they have won eight of their last nine.

Is a fast start important?

“Sometimes it builds morale,” Knox says.

Other times, a coach needs a full month simply to get his best team on the field.

Some NFL coaches sit around waiting for important players such as Greg Townsend, Keith Jackson and Michael Irvin to report. Others wonder where a second-round rookie such as Ram cornerback Steve Israel gets the chutzpah to report weeks late to camp.

If Israel gets burned in any of the first few games, his teammates will be sure to thank him.

The Rams could use some good news. Should they lose to Buffalo, it will be their 11th defeat in a row.

When the organization was born as the Cleveland Rams in 1937, it went off on a 12-game losing streak. And the L.A. Rams dropped 12 in a row from 1959-60.

It isn’t likely this squad will be a cream puff. The problem is, the Rams’ schedule is brutal. Every team in their division looks strong. There also are road games in Buffalo, Miami and Dallas, plus home games with Minnesota and the two New Yorks.

This isn’t a schedule, it’s a mine field.

On offense, the Rams appear to be limbering up to be a passing team, perhaps leery of asking Robert Delpino or Cleveland Gary to do too much too soon. Pardon a minority opinion, but the Ram running backs may be somewhat underrated and their receivers somewhat overrated.

On defense, players from Kevin Greene to Darryl Henley appear primed to have good seasons, but what the Rams really need is for defensive end Bill Hawkins and rookie Sean Gilbert to play the kind of football they played in college.

The Ram defense hasn’t held an opponent under 13 points since New Year’s Eve, 1989.

I researched this statistic in the new Ram media guide with the colorful cover. It was drawn by Sanjay Patel, 18, whose family manages a motel in San Bernardino.

The teacher of Sanjay’s high school art class, Julie Tabler, encouraged him to enter a contest co-sponsored by the Rams and The Times to submit original designs for the team’s 1992 yearbook.

Sanjay, an East Indian who lived in London until he was 5, was not much of a football fan. So he called his cousins for advice. They sent him football photographs from newspapers and magazines. Sanjay stayed up nights as late as 2 a.m., drawing, then rose for a 7:45 a.m. class at San Bernardino High.

“It got a little frantic,” he says.

But at the Ram kickoff luncheon, Frontiere presented him a check for $5,000 to go toward his college education.

Sanjay sent her a letter, saying: “Andy Warhol once said that everyone has 15 minutes of fame. Thank you for giving me a chance to outlive Warhol’s words, for giving me a chance to go to the art school of my dreams.”

Season’s off to a pretty start. Now let’s see how the football team looks.