For Right Price, Rams Could Be Contenders
The Rams are two drafts away, the Rams keep telling us.
Two drafts away.
How depressing is that, prospective Ram season-ticket buyers?
You have watched this team surrender 37 points in 48 minutes to the New Orleans Saints, a lead-footed, iron-headed group that normally considers 37 points quite a good month.
You have watched this team surrender 27 points in one half to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, requiring divine invention to dispatch the most motley crew in the National Football Conference.
You have watched this team lose five of its last seven games . . . and nine of 14 games this season . . . and 33 of 46 games this decade.
Are you willing to sit and wait for two more seasons?
Or would you rather begin next September with a defensive line that looks something like this:
Left end: Reggie White.
Right end: Leslie O’Neal.
Left tackle: Sean Gilbert.
Right tackle: Marc Boutte.
And a starting linebacking corps that looks something like this:
Left outside linebacker: Carl Banks.
Right outside linebacker: Wilber Marshall.
Middle linebacker: Al Smith.
How about Lorenzo White and Marcus Allen, lining up in the backfield?
How about Gary Clark and Ernest Givins, going deep?
How about--why not take this dream sequence all the way?--Steve Young hunkering down over center, ready to turn the Rams into scrambling, rambling, Super Bowl-bound fools?
Within days, the Rams could transform themselves into championship contenders because, within days, the NFL is expected to sign a new labor agreement that will allow true free agency for the first time in the league’s tight-fisted history.
Free agency is coming to nearly 400 football players who have played at least five years in the league, provided their current contracts expire next Feb. 1.
As simple as that, the most valuable player in the NFL (Young) and the best defensive end in the NFC (White) and the best middle linebacker in the AFC (Smith) could be available to the highest bidder. So, potentially, could Neil Smith, the 27-year-old sack king of the Kansas City Chiefs; Rod Bernstine, ignition switch to the San Diego Chargers; Bobby Hebert, who looked more like Bobby Layne last week in Anaheim, and Morten Andersen, the better half of the New Orleans offense.
No more free (“except for those two No. 1 draft picks you’ll have to forfeit to sign him”) agency.
No more 1-900-PLANB: “A Great Way to Meet Punters and Placekick Holders.”
The new free-agent system, which has been tentatively agreed upon by Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and the players, would unleash all five-year veterans whose contracts have expired, with the exception of one, two or three exemptions. Hammering down the exact number is one of the final sticking points in the negotiations.
The Tagliabue-Gene Upshaw accord calls for one “franchise player,” as designated by each team, to be excluded from free-agent consideration.
The owners, however, are holding out for the one “franchise player” exemption, plus the right of first refusal for two additional players.
(Just wondering: When the time comes, at the end of the five-year contract, at the end of 1994, do the Rams name Jim Everett their “franchise player”? Would you?)
Almost-unlimited free agency after five years seems an incredible concession by the owners, who would decree that all player contracts be signed in blood if they could. But it is incredible only until one notices the NFL’s 1,728-case losing streak against the players in court--and, the ominous gavel currently being brandished above their heads by one David Doty, United States District Judge.
If the owners don’t agree to compromise on free agency, Doty will do it for them, and could grant it sooner--for four-year veterans, for instance.
The owners want no part of that. They also want no abolition of the college draft, another distinct possibility if a new labor agreement failed to be forged. The Tagliabue-Upshaw plan calls for a seven-round draft, as opposed to the current 12, which the owners regard as infinitely preferable to no rounds and unlimited free agency for zero-year veterans.
Once the new basic agreement is signed, the Rams and the rest of the 49er wanna-bes will be unmasked.
Is paying-whatever-it-takes-to-win the true philosophy for the 1990s--or just so much lip service?
How do you sell building-for-the-future to your fans when the turnaround can happen in seconds, as long as it takes to put the pen to three or four dotted lines?
The Rams need linebackers.
Smith and Marshall and Banks, plus Shane Conlan, Duane Bickett, Tim Harris and Sam Mills, will be available.
The Rams need a tailback.
White and Allen and Bernstine, plus Barry Word and Ronnie Harmon, will be available.
All the Rams need to do is pay them.
February, March and April of 1993 will demonstrate just how the serious the Rams are about January of 1994.