Rams Have Their Fill of Phillips

Running back Lawrence Phillips, given reprieve after reprieve so long as he gained first downs, could no longer be counted on to produce on the field, so the St. Louis Rams put him on waivers Thursday.

“He was ultimately cut for performance reasons,” said John Shaw, Ram president. “There are a lot of factors, of course, which affected his performance, the latest with him just walking out on the team.”

Phillips, who grew up in Los Angeles, attended Baldwin Park High and went on to be a No. 1 draft pick from Nebraska last year, irritated team officials when they heard he might have been involved in a barroom altercation last Friday night.

A dehydrated Phillips showed up for last Sunday’s game with Atlanta, requiring an IV in order to play. He complained that he was suffering from flu, but team officials were concerned that his dehydration was the result of another night on the town.

Coach Dick Vermeil met with Phillips on Wednesday, told him that Jerald Moore was going to replace him in the starting lineup and discussed other matters, although Vermeil would not say what those were.

Phillips left that meeting and just kept on going. He skipped a meeting with the running backs, another with the entire team and then failed to attend practice.

He returned Thursday with an apology, insiders said, only to be met by Vermeil, who told him he would be waived.

Phillips left without making any comment. Vermeil, who eventually cut short a press briefing as he started to cry, said he contends Phillips will one day be a Pro Bowl performer.

“I’m very disappointed it came to this, extremely disappointed,” Vermeil said. “I care about the guy. . . . He’s only a few inches away--he just needs to keep maturing.”

Phillips can be claimed by any team in the league, the team with the worst record getting the first opportunity. He had run for 633 yards with a 3.5-yard average, while tying for the NFC lead with eight touchdowns. Bothered by a sore toe, he had been inconsistent, but not so bad as to merit being cut without other mitigating circumstances.

Phillips has had a number of alcohol-related incidents. Before this season, he served 23 days of a 30-day jail sentence for violating terms of a prior probation after pleading no contest to a drunk-driving charge in the Los Angeles area last year. The probation was the result of his pleading no contest to assaulting his Nebraska girlfriend.

Last February, he was arrested for swearing at and threatening police officers who responded to a call to his hotel room in Omaha. A few days later, after a traffic accident, he was charged with property damage, leaving the scene of an accident and driving with a revoked license.

The Rams, the team with the worst record in the ‘90s, were criticized for using the sixth pick in the first round of the 1996 draft on Phillips, and within the organization there was great debate, with Coach Rich Brooks and Steve Ortmayer, the team’s director of football operations, reportedly vouching for Phillips’ reliability.

The Rams, however, refused to give him any bonus money as a safeguard against the high risk of signing him. Phillips started 11 games as a rookie, and after the dismissal of Brooks and Ortmayer, it was discovered that Phillips had missed or been late for more than 30 team functions.

“To call the drafting of Lawrence Phillips anything but a mistake would be inaccurate,” Shaw said. “It was a large mistake.”

Phillips’ dismissal means he will lose about $500,000 of his $1.875-million base salary for this season. He was due to earn $2.25 million next year.

“Lawrence is too good of a running back to not be picked up,” said Wilbert Montgomery, who coaches the Ram running backs. “They’d be getting him at a bargain price at this stage and he can go in and help a lot of people. If we’d gotten a chance to reach Lawrence, he probably wouldn’t be in the mess he’s in today. The fact is, you’re dealing with a kid that was troubled and has been troubled for a long time.”