Failures of Past Darken the Dawning of a New Era

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. —  Meet the Rams’ new Chuck Knox era, not the same as the old Chuck Knox era.

In Era I, which covered the years 1973 through 1977, no Ram team lost a regular-season game by more than 16 points.

In Era II, which dawned Sunday afternoon, the Rams lost by 33 points.

In Era I, no Ram team ever yielded more than 31 points in a regular-season game.

In Era II, the Rams yielded 40 in their opener.

In Era I, the worst beating Knox had to endure was a 37-7 loss to Dallas in the 1975 NFC championship game.

In Era II, with the NFC championship game light years away, Knox lost to the Buffalo Bills, 40-7.

James Lofton wasn’t the only one breaking records at Rich Stadium this day.

While Lofton caught enough passes from Jim Kelly and Frank Reich to eclipse Steve Largent’s career record for pass-receiving yardage--not in one game; with the Rams, it always pays to clarify--Knox watched the Bills blot out the sun on a team that lost its last 10 games of the previous season, the reason for Knox’s existence on the visiting sideline Sunday.

Knox revives broken-down franchises, doesn’t he? The Rams of the early ‘70s, the Bills of the late ‘70s, the Seahawks of the early ‘80s--Knox was the NFL equivalent of Hamburger Helper. Three times, he turned ground meat into something the fans could stomach. Every stop, every challenge, the recipe for success seemed to be the same: Just add cliches.

But handing this bunch of underaged and underskilled Rams to Knox and asking him to win is like handing Knox a whisk broom and asking him to clean up Hurricane Andrew.

It isn’t going to get done in a week, a month, a year.

Maybe not in two years.

Maybe not in three.

These Rams have a quarterback who, despite eight months of soul-searching and head-cleaning, despite the off-season addition of quarterback coach/security blanket Ted Tollner, looked every bit as jittery and uncertain as he did last season, when he escorted John Robinson to the broadcast booth. After a career-high 20 interceptions in 1991, Jim Everett opened 1992 by throwing four more, matching another career high.

These Rams also have a defense that couldn’t keep Thurman Thomas out of the end zone--Thomas scored four touchdowns, three by land and one by air--and an offensive line that couldn’t keep Bills’ defensive end Bruce Smith from terrorizing Everett. Smith had two sacks, two pass deflections and spent so much time in Everett’s face that Everett later suggested that “Maybe we should have made Bruce Smith the quarterback and given him the ball, he was in the backfield so much.”

Maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad idea.

And as for Knox’s new offensive scheme, the one-back?

After netting 66 rushing yards and fewer than four first downs per quarter, the offense now bears the same name as the Rams’ current placement in the NFC West standings.

One back.

Sequestered in an empty gray cement dressing room that had the look and feel of a prison cell, Knox was asked for an assessment. What could he say?

“We got beat by a good football team,” he said.

“We didn’t help ourselves,” he said.

“We couldn’t stop them defensively, we couldn’t get anything going offensively and the special teams were so-so. That’s the story of the ballgame,” he said.

“We’ll get better,” he promised.

When and where is anybody’s guess. If it doesn’t happen next week against New England, the Rams will have matched the franchise record for most consecutive defeats--12 in a row. After that, three of the next four games are on the road--at Miami, at San Francisco and at New Orleans.

For Knox and the Rams, it could get a lot worse before it gets any better.

Jackie Slater is the only Ram old enough to span both Knox regimes. Being able to remember the good times allows him the perspective to cope with the bad.

“Chuck’s a winner,” Slater said. “From his perspective, he has to be hurting. We’re all hurting. It’s tough to look next to me on the sideline and see all these people ticked off because things are going wrong. . . .

“But there’s not a doubt in my mind that he has us on the right track. There wasn’t a thing out there that Buffalo did that surprised us. No surprises. We came thoroughly prepared, and that’s how I grade a coaching staff.

“Chuck puts a team in position to be productive. It’s up to the players to make the plays.”

Running back Robert Delpino is new to Knox, but not to the Rams’ predicament. One could call 40-7 a lousy first impression, but Delpino knows the Rams too well to know better.

“I feel he’s come in and been asked to coach a team that’s been on the bubble for two years,” Delpino said of Knox. “It doesn’t matter who’s the coach; you have to respect any coach who tries to turn it around the way Chuck Knox is doing.”

In previous overhauls, Knox turned the Rams and Seahawks around in a single season. With the Bills he needed three.

Here and now?

“I can’t give you an answer on that,” Delpino said. “I’m not an analyst. I’m not a psychic. It’s up to us.

“Chuck Knox isn’t going to turn it around. The players have to turn it around. We’re led by him, but it’s going to take all of us.”

Slater went a step further.

“Somewhere down the road, we’re going to look up and be right where we want to be,” Slater said. “The guy’s a winner. He knows how to win and how to put players in a situation where they can be successful.

“He has a plan. Down the road, it’s going to come to fruition.”

Then again, the road to ruin is the one that’s lined with good intentions. But at the moment, good intentions are pretty much all the Rams have.