Season Preview: Rams ’92 : Delpino’s Role Is a Running Question

His buddies would stop by, razz him a little bit, maybe punch him on the shoulder, then let him be.

Robert Delpino laughed and shot the breeze from time to time during training camp, but he didn’t mind watching his friends head on their way without him.

“They understand,” he said. “They let it roll, let me deal with it. My friends are there for me, but right now, I’m just with me. It’s Robert’s time to be alone for a while. That’s what’s good for me right now. That’s what I need right now. That’s what I like right now.”

Training camp ought to have been a time of satisfaction for Delpino, who stepped into the void at running back last season and led the Rams in rushing with 688 yards and nine touchdowns.

But now, Delpino looks back at a summer of holding out, then sitting out with an injury, and sums it up in one word. “Terrible,” he said. “No fun at all, to tell you the truth. No fun. This was my worst training camp in five years. There was nothing to be happy about.”

The first training camp in Coach Chuck Knox’s second Ram regime began without Delpino, who was holding out for--what was it? Money, respect, respectable money? He tried to get the Rams to renegotiate a contract that will pay him $325,000 this year. The Rams didn’t budge.

That salary isn’t a starter’s salary. But after Delpino gave up on the holdout, reported to camp and rather promptly suffered a groin injury that kept him out of much of the preseason, it seemed as if that point might be moot.

Marcus Dupree was having a good preseason--though in the end it only got him cut. Delpino took in what he was seeing. As he practiced for the Rams’ final exhibition game, it felt like he was slipping from the picture.

“They wanted to go with whoever had been in there,” Delpino said. “(That day), when I was practicing, guys were going in where I used to be.”

Delpino had only three carries and three yards rushing before the exhibition finale against the San Diego Chargers, when he established himself a bit more with 21 yards in six carries and another 14 with two catches.

He was in the middle of a muddle, a tangle of eager running backs that included Dupree, Cleveland Gary, Tim Lester, Derek Loville and David Lang.

A starter’s salary was no longer the question. Instead, he wondered where he would fit. Starting tailback, starting fullback, blocking and pass-catching specialist? The answer had become this: Wherever he could. And when Knox indicated as he made final cuts that the Rams will use a lot of one-back sets, it meant that Delpino’s versatility was going to be his great advantage.

“It just got to the point, I think, obviously, where it’s like, ‘Where can he contribute to this team?’ ” Delpino said. “I’ve got to show them where I can contribute with the options they give me, whatever opportunities they give me.”

He would do what he was asked to. That, he said, was just business.

That is what he says the holdout was about, just business. But because he was already under contract after signing a two-year deal before the 1991 season, the Rams weren’t talking, even if Delpino’s 1992 job performance had considerably changed the picture. The year before, he had rushed for 52 yards all season.

The failed strategy extracted nothing from the Rams but a murmur about negotiating a contract extension. But what’s to talk about now, when Knox’s plans remain a bit murky as the season begins?

“We’ll see,” Delpino said, not optimistic about new contract talks. “They mentioned it when I came in. We’ll see what happens. And then I got hurt, so there goes that theory. . . . If you want to talk strictly business, that’s the way I’d look at it. And the Rams are strictly business, everyone knows that. There’s nothing I can do about that at this point.”

Does Delpino have regrets about holding out? Maybe.

“I don’t know, I’ve thought about that,” he said. “I had to do what was best for me. (But) it didn’t do me any good.”

Missing the opening few days of practice ought to have felt like playing hooky. Instead, Delpino fretted constantly.

“I worried,” he said. “And worried and worried. And I thought about the fines. That’s the only thing I regret about the holdout. The only thing I regret about missing mini-camp and part of training camp is getting fined.”

How much? Delpino let out an agonized ugghhhhh .

“I think it’s up to 14 grand, total,” he said.

It wasn’t the mounting penalty that brought Delpino to camp, though. It was the number of running backs getting comfortable at the position he considered his.

“I was seeing my job, I felt, slip away,” he said. “I was saying, ‘That’s my job.’ I decided to stop sitting around here, get my butt in there and do it all over again. I thought I had to start all over again.”

He came into camp after missing five days, spouting a mixture of pride, determination and resentment.

Robert Delpino would have to prove himself. Again. “Story of my life,” he said.

“I thought I’d start all over again,” he said. “I wanted to get the respect I thought I should get. I said, ‘OK, no one cares about you at this point. You’ve got to care about yourself. You’ve got to get in there, ‘cause you’re not doing anything here. So you’ve got to get in there and do the best you can.”

But about a week after reporting to camp, Delpino sustained a groin injury, the type of relatively minor injury that nonetheless can be naggingly persistent. Try to come back too soon, and it sits you back down.

“You keep going and going, and it’s going to get worse and worse,” Delpino said. “They say rest it, but you really can’t rest it like you want to rest it, because you lose playing time, you lose your job, you lose, you lose, you lose.

“What it is, it’s a situation you don’t want to be in at this point in your career. It’s been really disappointing for me.”

Delpino never thought he’d be automatically handed the starting tailback’s job, and it remains hard to tell exactly how his mix of skills and undersized body will be used.

If it were up to him, Delpino would be starting at tailback in a role similar to the one he had last year. But the Rams’ offense is changing under Knox, and likely so will Delpino’s role.

For now, he is waiting to see exactly how the running back situation will shake down, with him and Gary likely to start out sharing time in a one-back, pass-oriented offense.

“You’re stuck in a rut, contributing where you can to the team--not necessarily a rut, I guess,” Delpino said. “It’s a contribution and it’s your job. I love my job, but there comes a point where you want more. You want to contribute more, year in and year out. Then something like this happens to screw up your whole season. Even though the season hasn’t even started, you’re behind.”

Delpino is no malcontent, unaware that other people face more complicated struggles than his own.

“I understand there are a lot of people less fortunate than myself with a lot more problems than I have now,” he said. “The positive thing is I’m able do what I love to do. I count my blessings. You don’t complain, you strive for better. That’s all I want to do.”

He thinks back to earlier this summer, when striving for a better salary was the main thing on his mind. Are things so different now? Yes and no.

“I had my health then; I have it now. I’m alive,”--he cracked a smile--”I was then. I was probably happier then. My life was probably not as much in turmoil as it is now. But that’s what happens in life. You’ve got to take the blows, get knocked down and get back up again. If you get thrown by the wayside, you’ve got to pick yourself up and get dragged along with the rest of us.”

The holdout and the prideful statements that accompanied it are long past.

“I was never really angry,” he said, thinking back to the Rams’ refusal to lure him into camp with a raise. “I’m not an angry person. I like to demand respect. I don’t like to demand respect with my mouth; I like to demand respect out there on the practice field, by example. I do my job, everyone knows that. That’s why I have respect. Then there’s this thing called business we have to deal with, where I don’t feel I’m appreciated. That’s not anger. That’s just the truth.”

His miserable training camp is behind him, too. Whatever damage was done was done. When the cuts were announced, Delpino came out quite well.

And the man who says proving himself has been the story of his life claims he is not going to worry about that any longer.

“I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, I don’t think, anymore,” he said. “I’ve made my mind up with that. I’m not saying that anymore. That’s out of my vocabulary. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone on this earth ever again as far as my ability to play football. Because, I mean, I’m a veteran. I’m almost 27 years old. I’ve been through hell. I’ve had good times with the Rams, and bad times with the Rams. Two great seasons, two terrible seasons. A personal-best season ever, a personal-worst season ever. So where am I at, where does that put me now?”

He’s waiting to see, like everyone else.