RAM NOTEBOOK / TIM KAWAKAMI : With Free Agency About to Knock, Will Rams Answer?

The gates of free-agency are about to spring open, and now the wait is to see if the Rams have the fortitude to seize the moment.

Labor peace, currently in the form of a tentative agreement to end the five-year stalemate between NFL management and players, could hardly have dawned at a more opportune time for the Rams.

On the cusp of free-agency for unsigned NFL players of five or more years experience, the Rams sit with a middle-ranged salary scale (ranked 14th, with a $23 million-a-year payroll, among the 28 teams in a recent survey), a host of positions in dire need of upgrading, a coach who attracts veteran players, and almost no crucial players on their current roster who qualify for free agency.

Are the Rams ready to make the bankroll commitment to take advantage of it? Will they wade in to the market this February and March and go after a big name, such as Houston Oilers middle linebacker Al Smith or Kansas City defensive end Neil Smith?

“Oh, we’re going to sign free agents,” said one Ram official this week, noting that Coach Chuck Knox would have it no other way. “We’d be crazy not to.”

That’s easy to say now, but harder to pull off when the contract demands are real and escalatory. Still, Ram officials have said privately they know their haggling posture in contract talks must change if free agency is part of the equation.

At the very least, Rams sources say, they will pursue a handful of players based on need more than superstar ability, perhaps focusing on two or three defensive players who together might dent--but won’t bust--owner Georgia Frontiere’s bank account.

And Ram veterans who went through the background push-and-pull between former Coach John Robinson and the management over what to pay players seem convinced that Knox will have no such problems.

Knox himself doesn’t hide the fact that he very much wants to explore the new avenue of acquiring talent, to stay “competitive” in the marketplace, as he phrased it Wednesday.

“When Chuck Knox came and took this job, he wanted control of personnel, going out and getting the players and paying the players what they wanted to be paid,” says safety Anthony Newman.

“I think that’s the difference between Knox and some other coaches. Knox, he’s been in it a long time, he didn’t come here to be second to anybody.”

Knox said he doesn’t agree with skeptics who think the Rams will stay out of the big-money free-agent market.

“I haven’t sat down and talked with those people, but I don’t know where that skepticism is based,” Knox said. “I think in the past, they’ve (Ram officials) been pretty competitive, from what I understand.”

Here’s a quick look at how things might develop in the next few months:

Who the Rams have to worry about losing to free-agency: The Rams, thanks to their failed drafts in the late-’80s, don’t have an abundance of prime-aged talent to try to horde.

Nobody, rest assured, is planning on making quick raids on the likes of free-agents-to-be Larry Kelm, Joe Milinichik, Gerald Robinson or Mike Pagel.

But the Rams do have a few starters they probably cannot afford to lose, beginning with left tackle Gerald Perry, who is young enough (28) and talented enough (some Rams were quietly pushing for him to get a Pro Bowl spot this year) to draw keen interest, despite his off-the-field history of legal problems.

Kicker Tony Zendejas also could attract offers, but he was a Plan B free-agent from Houston two years ago and chose the Rams, and might not be eager to leave.

Who the Rams might not be worrying about losing as much as you’d think: Kevin Greene enters free agency as a huge question mark in the Rams’ future plans.

Somebody is going to offer him big bucks to line up at his natural 3-4 blitzing linebacker spot, but is he worth between $1.4 million and $1.75 million a year to the Rams, who are obviously building the defense around Sean Gilbert?

Sometimes, Greene just seems to get in the way, and it shows.

“I think he’s got an excellent future in this defense--or any other defense,” Knox said of Greene, whose sack production has stalled since an early rush.

The last time Knox used that kind of phrasing, he was talking about holdover defensive coordinator Jeff Fisher, who became the team’s former defensive coordinator one day later.

Who the Rams don’t have to worry about for a long time: By design or luck, everybody--from Jim Everett to Bern Brostek to Flipper Anderson to Tom Newberry to Todd Lyght to Sean Gilbert--is signed at least through 1994, making the Rams’ choice of whom to protect as their one franchise-player exemption practically irrelevant until the middle of the decade.

Atlanta Falcon Coach Jerry Glanville was chatty about the just-announced Pro Bowl roster, during Wednesday morning’s conference call with local writers.

“Here’s a good one for you: One of the (NFC) quarterbacks is (the Packers’) Brett Favre, the guy we traded,” Glanville said. “Boy, that makes me look good.”

Then Glanville was asked about the absence of another quarterback he drafted, then traded, Jim Everett, who refused to sign with Glanville’s Houston Oilers.

“Wasn’t he the Pro Bowl quarterback a few years ago?” Glanville asked, before being told Everett only appeared in the Pro Bowl as an alternate, that he never was voted to the game. “He never made it? I didn’t know that. . . .

“He got paid like he made it.”