COMMENTARY : Good Night for Saying Goodby

By MIKE PENNER

Dec. 23, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SEATTLE — For one night, for this final night, Seattle’s Kingdome was a hall of confusion for all who walked off the field wearing blue and gold and dragging 3-13 with them.

The Rams’ present had become their past.

The Rams’ past could become their future.

And as for the future, no Ram could be sure of anything--not their jobs, not their addresses--except for the fact that John Robinson won’t be present.

The Robinson era ended Sunday, sadly and somberly, with another error, a 23-9 walk-through against the Seattle Seahawks. That makes 10 consecutive Ram defeats, a single-season record for this franchise, although Robinson stopped counting a while back. He administered his own painkiller Wednesday when he announced his resignation as head coach and his players, picking up on the the theme, said goodby with four final quarters of numbness.

Farewell hung in the air this evening, and not exclusively above horned heads. Sunday, the clock was also ticking on Chuck Knox, the Seattle coach who hasn’t resigned but will be gone any day now, just as soon Seahawk owners Ken Behring and Ken Hofmann agree on the site of the news conference.

Knox is out-bound because the Seahawks failed to make the playoffs for the third consecutive year, although if Robinson had Knox’s record this season--7-9--he would be planning for Plan B today.

Knox is too conservative, is what they’re saying in Seattle.

Knox will win you seven or eight or nine of the little ones but never the big one--that’s the sentiment in the Seattle front office now.

Same as the sentiment that swept through the Rams’ front office in 1977, sweeping Knox and his five NFC West titles all the way to Buffalo.

Fourteen years later, could they be planning a comeback?

As hot NFL rumors go, Knox-to-the-Rams is No. 2 on the charts, right behind everybody’s favorite, Buddy Ryan-to-the-Rams. Rationale: Knox always got along with Georgia Frontiere--it was Georgia’s husband, the late Carroll Rosenbloom, who couldn’t stop yawning--and Knox has already turned around three NFL losers, the 1972-73 Rams included. Better rumors have been founded on a lot less and one of the jokes going around the press box Sunday had Knox boarding the Ram team plane after the game.

Knox refused to address that possibility, or much of anything else, in what will have to rank as one of the shortest farewell speeches on record.

Knox thanked his players for “battling hard,” his defense for “making the plays” and said he thought the Rams played hard. As for the future, Knox said “I’m just going to enjoy this one tonight. It’ll make Christmas with my 3-year-old granddaughter a little more pleasant.”

In the visitors’ locker room, the Knox question was broached, if gingerly, with Robinson.

“He’s been a great coach for a lot of years and his teams have always had class,” Robinson said. “(The Seahawks) have had ups and downs, you know, like all of us in this business.

“So much is made of things that I think people and the quality of people sometimes gets forgotten in this league (and) maybe in all our society right now. Chuck’s a great guy.”

And how did John Robinson feel about the prospect of such a great guy replacing him in Anaheim?

“I won’t even bother to comment on that.”

It was an awkward moment after a very awkward season, a horrible conclusion to Robinson’s nine years with the Rams, six of which had ended during the postseason. The crash was complete--from NFC final to 3-13 in 23 months--and Robinson’s mood was predictably terse, but he was able to muster a few moments’ worth of perspective.

“The thing I’m focusing on (are) the Henry Ellards and the Jackie Slaters and the Kevin Greenes and all those people,” Robinson said. “Jim Everett. All these people that have been on this team, they tried their best, and we have shared a lot of great times together.

“And even the times that aren’t good, we’ve shared together. I think there’s a divisiveness that can be there when things are not so good, (when) people are always trying to talk about, ‘Well, I confess, it’s somebody else.’ I would like to believe we got through this year with a minimum of finger-pointing.”

Change is coming and change, Jackie Slater says, “is never easy. It’s always uncomfortable. For everybody involved, it’s going to be a challenge.”