Are Rams Trying to Pull the Wool Over Our Eyes?

NEW ORLEANS —  In lieu of not making it to the Super Bowl again, the Rams opted to do the next-best thing: steal the big game’s thunder with the shocking announcement that they have resurrected Dick Vermeil.

Hard to believe the Rams were capable of a brilliant move, but consider their options: San Francisco defensive coordinator Pete Carroll? Philadelphia defensive coordinator Emmitt Thomas? Rolling the dice.

Former New Orleans Coach Jim Mora? Stop yawning.

Steve Mariucci? The 49ers already had claimed the very best college coach with one year’s experience as head man with a .500 record.

Dick Vermeil, a bold, daring and intriguing move to rekindle St. Louis’ interest just as the honeymoon appeared to be over.

“I threw my hands in the air,” Sherman Lewis, the Green Bay Packers’ offensive coordinator, said after hearing of Vermeil’s hiring. “I couldn’t understand the logic.”

Lewis, who cannot be contacted by any team until after the Super Bowl, expected to be a prime candidate for some of the head- coaching openings in the NFL this year. Lewis worked with Mariucci as his superior in Green Bay, and Mariucci’s hiring in San Francisco came as a shock.

And now here’s Vermeil, plucked from the scrap heap, taking away another opportunity.

“Their records are not even comparable to mine,” said Lewis, an African American, who was asked if that might be a factor in what has taken place. “I would hate to say that, and I hope that’s not the case, but I would have no way of knowing.

“If somebody wanted me, they could have waited [until after the Super Bowl]. If that position is so important, why couldn’t they wait until next week? Another week is not going to set you back.”

The Rams, forced into a position of having to hire Rich Brooks after the firing of Chuck Knox two years ago, were locked in that position again. Team President John Shaw offered former San Francisco 49er coach George Seifert almost all of Georgia Frontiere’s mad money, and he preferred retirement.

Detroit had Bobby Ross tied up and Bobby Beathard had Kevin Gilbride headed to San Diego long ago. Shaw delayed the decision to hire Mora and there was no one else, an indictment on the dearth of promising talent in the NFL coaching ranks.

By chance, Vermeil called, and Shaw needed no reminder of who he was.

“The man’s a born leader,” Shaw said, and although the move is being held up to ridicule now, who else has the energy to jump-start the faltering Rams’ organization?

Now if only someone will explain to him what a zone blitz is, while pointing out that Charlotte and Jacksonville now are potential game-day stops, come September.

“The game has changed a lot in the last 15 years,” Lewis said.

The headline in Tuesday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch concurred: “Dick Vermeil?”

The Rams’ selection of a dinosaur to run their team had the media buzzing, and although it was Media Day for the Packers and Patriots, the attention was on the happenings in St. Louis.

“I just realized that a big fire still burns in me,” said Vermeil, 60, who spoke for 30 minutes at the news conference announcing his hiring before taking any questions. “I have never been, in my life, more confident or better prepared.”

Vermeil, 57-51 while coaching the Eagles from 1976 through 1982 before leaving because he was burned out, took Philadelphia to the Super Bowl in 1981. Since his departure, he has been working as a college football television analyst for CBS and ABC.

“People are going to say Dick’s a retread, a has-been, almost a never-was because I lost the Super Bowl, and possibly over the hill,” said Vermeil, and he was right.

In the Super Bowl pressroom, he was immediately being compared to Bud Wilkinson, who returned to coaching after a 15-year hiatus and lost consistently as the St. Louis Cardinals’ head coach. And did someone mention Barry Switzer? More than once.

“No, and that’s a definite no,” John Madden, the former Raider coach who will be broadcasting Super Bowl XXXI for Fox TV, said when asked if he would ever return to coaching. “I’m really shocked that Vermeil went back.

“I always felt that I could go back and coach, no matter how much football changed. Players change, offenses change, defenses change, but I always thought I could still do it--until free agency came. Free agency and the salary cap determined things rather than how good the player was, and I could never coach again.”

With the Rams, Vermeil will not only return to coaching after a 15-year hiatus, but he will be in charge of the draft, free agency and the salary cap.

“I don’t know how Dick Vermeil is going to do it,” Madden said. “I wish him well, but . . . I know I wouldn’t want to do it.”

While most print journalists began to limber their fingers in preparation for criticizing Vermeil’s hiring, Terry Bradshaw, the Fox analyst and former Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback, said he endorsed the decision.

“I was shocked,” he said. “But that’s good. He’s going into a team that’s pretty talented, so I expect him to do well.

“If Vermeil had been available and someone had told me that before all the openings, I would definitely say he would be one of the top three coaches on my list.”

Ahead of Mariucci?