On the Menu: A Lean Season for Rams

Two sportswriters were having dinner in Westminster the other night, talking football. One of them made the mistake of bringing along a Ram media guide--what was I thinking?--and left it, improperly displayed, on an adjacent seat.

The waitress was aghast.

“Oh no!” she shrieked, and I thought maybe Richard Simmons had just taken the booth behind us.

“The R-a-a-a-m-s ?!” she said, flinching, wincing, in apparent pain.

“Not a fan?” I suggested, taking a wild stab.

The waitress just shook her head and smiled. She seemed to be taking pity on me.

What could I say?

It’s a living.

The word on the Rams is out, on the streets and in the buffalo-wing bistros of Orange County, and it is as short as it is universal.

B-A-D.

The bandwagon jumpers who hopped on board during the inexplicable playoff run of 1989 have since known nothing but. The numbers numb--5-11 followed by 3-13 followed by 6-10 followed by the first 0-4 summer in Ram history, this summer.

And today, another regular season begins against the Green Bay Packers, who are favored to win the NFC Central, followed, in three of the next four weeks, by the Pittsburgh Steelers, who won the AFC Central last year; the Houston Oilers, who are supposed to win the AFC Central this year; and the New Orleans Saints, who are going to win a playoff game one of these years, Jim Mora swears it.

It has become a condition indigenous to our environment in the 1990s: We have nothing to fear but the worst. Even self-described “optimist” Chuck Knox, who’d predicted a playoff berth prior to the opening of training camp, was sounding beleaguered and worried after the fourth consecutive exhibition defeat.

“I’ve said our goal is to make the playoffs. That remains our goal,” Knox said, speaking as if he were reading the words off scribbled cue cards.

It’s a hard pitch to make, coming on the heels of an exhibition season in which the most impressive looking Ram was third-string quarterback T.J. Rubley. Rubley was an August sensation--scrambling and improvising, rallying his teammates and energizing the fans. Knox noted all of it and rewarded the youngster in kind.

Rubley was allowed to remain the Rams’ third-string quarterback.

Knox spent most of the summer somberly staring at the Anaheim

Stadium turf and wondering why the grounds crew had forgotten to water. Brush fires cropped up everywhere.

Top draft choice Jerome Bettis, the touted Battering Ram, was a battered Ram, his exhibition work limited to eight carries because of a bad ankle.

Irv Eatman and Leo Goeas, the free agents hired to replace Gerald Perry and Joe Milinichik on the offensive line, were, by and large, missing in action. Goeas got hurt--and the way Eatman blocked, Jim Everett nearly joined him.

The receiving corps was, and remains, an all-comers audition. Knox moved them in and out like cattle. Phillip Bobo. Reggie Moore. Curtis Gaspard. Tony Hargain. Sam Graddy.

Richard Buchanan, an undrafted invitee from the football factory of Northwestern, stuck as the fourth wide receiver. Ernie Jones, considered too much trouble and too inconsistent to contribute in Phoenix, has been with the Rams a week and now ranks as the team’s chief deep threat. And the search continues, never-ending, with Cleveland Gary the leading bait.

Unfortunately, Green Bay stubbornly refuses to trade Sterling Sharpe.

Defensively, the Rams have been decent, though no one has nominated “Doomsday” as a nickname. Defensively is how Everett weathered this exhibition season, fending off a career-high of public criticism and abuse, as if it finally dawned on Orange County after 55 interceptions and 14 victories in the ‘90s: You know, this might not be working out.

Today, Everett and the Rams return to the area code where things began to turn sour. Sept. 9, 1990 was the date, Lambeau Field was the site. The Rams floated in on the high from their appearance in the previous January’s conference championship game. Sports Illustrated had them going to the Super Bowl. The Packers were playing without their Pro Bowl quarterback, holdout Don Majkowski, and were thrusting untested Anthony Dilweg into the fray.

It was bound to be a rout, and it was. Packers 36, Rams 24. Dilweg passed for 248 yards and three touchdowns, the Rams rolled the ball all over the field and the Super Bowl Express auditioned for the track wreck scene in “The Fugitive.”

The Rams began doubting themselves on that day, and haven’t been able to shake the feeling. If Dilweg couldn’t be stopped, they shuddered, what was going to happen against Randall Cunningham, Boomer Esiason and Joe Montana?

The team lost its verve, its nerve and finally its coach. When it came time to start over, the Rams played it safe. They hired the safe coach (Knox, Mr. Nine-And-Seven), made the safe decision at quarterback (stayed with Everett), signed the safe free agents (the steady Shane Conlan, the inexpensive Henry Rolling).

Green Bay, in the meantime, did everything the Rams didn’t. Former Bill Walsh assistant Mike Holmgren was a dynamic choice for head coach. The Packers traded for a sapling of a quarterback, Brett Favre, and rolled the dice with him. He could be the next Bart Starr. And when the players were emancipated in the spring of ‘93, Green Bay signed the biggest free agent of them all, Reggie White.

Titletown has been rebuilt, and today, the Rams are the first to make a site inspection.

If they know what’s good for them, they’ll bring along pen and paper.