COMMENTARY : Whether Rams Stay or Go, It Is Time for Knox to Leave

“Is time running out? Yes. We’ve been here for two years and we’ve built this football team in Chuck’s image. The expectancy is there. The performance must be there and we have got to be held accountable for what we do.”

--Joe Vitt, Ram assistant head coach, September 1994

“Give me three years and I’ll give you the playoffs.” That was the Chuck Knox guarantee that floored them, time after time, in job interviews around the NFL.

After two decades, the resume was unassailable.

Hired by Rams in 1973, won NFC West title in 1973.

Hired by Buffalo in 1978, won AFC East title in 1980.

Hired by Seattle in 1983, won AFC wild card in 1983.

And now, how will the last line read?

How about: Hired by Rams in 1992, fired by Rams in 1994.

The handwriting is no longer on the wall; it’s everywhere one chooses to look.

On the Anaheim Stadium scoreboard Sunday: Saints 31, Rams 15.

In the NFC West standings: Rams are in last place at 4-9, 0-6 against division rivals.

In the Ram record book, filed under “Lowest Winning Percentage by a Ram Head Coach”:

Pos. Coach Years W-L-T Pct. 1. Hugh Bezdek 1937-38 1-13-0 .071 2. Bob Waterfield 1960-62 9-24-1 .265 3. Harland Svare 1962-65 14-31-3 .323 4. Chuck Knox 1992-94 15-30-0 .333

Footnotes to history: Bezdek didn’t make it through the first month of the 1938 season, Waterfield resigned after the eighth game of the 1962 season, and Svare was fired immediately after the 1965 season.

Is Knox headed for a similar fate?

Are the Rams headed for St. Louis?

“I’m disappointed it hasn’t gotten done,” Knox said Sunday during the post-mortem of a dreadful five-fumble, six-turnover performance. “And I’m the head guy, so I should be held accountable. I have to take responsibility.”

Joe Vitt, the staunchest soldier in Knox’s tight coterie of loyal assistants, stood outside the Ram coaches cubicle, back pressed against a wall, and said, “You either do it or you don’t do it. You can’t . . . . everybody: ‘Well, the turnovers did it,’ or ‘We had injuries.’

“You either accept the challenge and do it, or you find another line of work.”

That the job hasn’t gotten done is so painfully obvious, it hurts merely to watch. Since taking over a 3-13 can of Alpo from John Robinson in early 1992, Knox has added Sean Gilbert, Jerome Bettis, Shane Conlan, Fred Stokes, Jimmie Jones, Joe Kelly, Marquez Pope, Troy Drayton and Chris Miller to the talent base and watched the Rams’ performance actually regress.

After 13 games in 1992, the Rams were 5-8. At the same stage in 1993, they were 4-9. Now, again, they are 4-9, only winless against the NFC West for the first time under Knox and quite possibly bound for 4-12, which would represent another first for Knox.

Knox declined to answer queries about his job security because “that’s speculation, and I’m only concerned with what I can control and that’s coaching.”

Besides, he added, “It’s not over yet. We have three games left. I’d like to win each and every one of them.”

Three games--at Tampa Bay (2-0 in its last two, a feat unmatched by the Rams of Knox II), at Chicago (less talent than the Rams but tied for the lead in the NFC Central) and against Washington on Christmas Eve, with “Dear John, we’re going to St. Louis” notes left in the stocking of each remaining Ram fan.

The book is still open, but that’s about it. Everyone knows how this story is going to end, and it doesn’t look good for the steely-eyed Irishman.

Contrast the reputation with the reality.

Reputation: Knox wins division championships.

Reality: Since returning to the Rams in 1992, Knox is 2-16 against NFC West opponents.

Reputation: Knox rebuilds defenses.

Reality: The Rams have yielded 31 points in each of their last three games.

Reputation: “Ground Chuck.”

Reality: Jerome Bettis has rushed for three touchdowns this season. New Orleans’ Mario Bates, making his fourth career NFL start, matched that Sunday before halftime.

Reputation: Knox teams don’t quit.

Reality: This Knox team had quit written all over it Sunday, all the way down to the coaching staff.

Trailing, 28-7, in the waning seconds of the first half, Knox had quarterback Chris Miller take a knee and run out the clock amid a cacophony of boos. Same score, third quarter, Rams have the ball on their own 42--fourth and one--and Knox sends in the punt team.

By afternoon’s end, surrender had become so embedded in the Ram game plan that reserve quarterback Chris Chandler was moved to bizarrely spike the ball on third and goal from the New Orleans two-yard line with 1:15 left. The clock was running, and the Rams owned no more timeouts, but they had two throws into the end zone if Chandler hurried to the line and called an audible.

Instead, the ball is spiked, bringing on fourth down, and Chandler, bizarrely again, tries a quarterback sneak that is buried at the one-yard line.

Ram fans can only hope the drivers of the moving vans take the same tack when they arrive at Rams Park this winter. If they do, the vans will never get out of the parking lot.

“The one thing you can’t do after a loss is make excuses,” Vitt said. “You can’t line up the alibis. . . .

“If (Knox) wants to be held accountable, that’s fine by me. Count me in too. I’m on his bandwagon.”

So it’s a convoy, then. Moving vans, Chuck Knox bandwagon, all of them headed in the same direction.

Out of town.