It's past time to get Jackson in Rams camp
By
Bryan Burwell
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Tuesday, Aug. 12 2008
Because Brett Favre is already taken, Manny Ramirez is busy cavorting in
Hollywood, and well, Michael Phelps is a little preoccupied right now with that
Olympic thing, the Rams are left with very few options in their quest to become
a viable entertainment-sports property in this city again.
The Rams need star quality in the worst way.
They need someone to ignite a spark, to make you want to care about them, talk
about them, to get an entire city fired up about them again.
What they need is Steven Jackson.
I saw that first preseason game against the Tennessee Titans, and it didn't
take me long to see how bad the Rams looked without the big man in their
offensive backfield. It just reinforced what I already believed in the first
place: With or without Jackson, the Rams could still be no better than 6-10. If
everything is perfect, they could get lucky and rise to 8-8.
But here's a painful truth that can't be ignored. This is a franchise in dire
need of star quality because without Jackson, they will not only be horrible,
they'll be frighteningly uninteresting and flirting dangerously with downright
insignificance in a fragile sports marketplace.
Already behind the championship-rich Cardinals in passionate fan interest,
another stinker of a season like last year's 3-13 mess could easily drop the
Rams behind both Mizzou and Illinois football and (gasp and swoon) maybe even
the NHL Blues for this sports-crazed city's late summer-early autumn devotion.
The smartest people in this organization know how close they are to stepping
even further over that fine line of lack of interest that we saw last season
when the fans abandoned the franchise in large, troubling numbers. By midseason
the home games became road games because visiting fans showed up in mobs of
more than 30,000, holding onto tickets they bought from Rams fans.
That's why it's just bad business for the team to prolong this contract
stalemate with Jackson any longer than it already has gone. So we're nearly
three weeks into the Jackson holdout and everyone on both sides of the
negotiating table has proved their points. General manager Jay Zygmunt has
proven his resolve not to negotiate with a holdout, and Jackson has proven that
he is equally stubborn because the closest he's gotten to the team's Mequon,
Wis., training camp has been via text messages to teammates and coaches.
But enough is enough. With four weeks left before the start of the regular
season, it's time for everyone to get rid of their stubbornness and find a way
to get Jackson into camp and signed as quickly as possible. At what point will
Zygmunt admit to himself that this standoff has already reached critical mass,
and that both sides' refusal to budge is about to dramatically affect the
won-loss column?
This is not the time or the season for making stubborn points that will hurt
the team in the short term. After only one preseason game, haven't we seen more
than enough to realize that the margin for error with this team is slimmer than
an anorexic willow branch?
I never really understood why Zygmunt painted himself into such a negotiating
corner when he said publicly that he wouldn't negotiate with Jackson as long as
he held out. It made him sound tough, but it was decidedly impractical. This is
a season that has too much on the line for too many people. You think Scott
Linehan's happy that Zygmunt is digging his heels in? Linehan's job depends on
this season.
History tells us that once the Rams do actually sit down to the negotiating
table, they take care of their key star players. So Jackson should know that
whenever he does show up at camp, a deal can be done rather expediently. So
Zygmunt's only priority should be to find a way to get him into camp. Everyone
needs to swallow a little pride. Ziggy should find a way to get Jackson to show
up in Mequon, and Jackson needs to realize that he can do that with little
chance of a career-ending injury.
If Jay can quietly make contact, then Jackson can show up at camp with a
"pulled" hamstring muscle (wink, wink), which will limit him to non-contact
drills while Zygmunt and Jackson's agent hammer out the details of a new deal.
These little shenanigans should be enough to protect both men's egos, and if
you believe all the glowing compliments the team president has tossed around
since camp began, a deal could be done in days, if not hours.
The Rams need victories and star quality, and Jackson can help deliver both in
large quantities. There's no one else in this city with both the combustible
personality and the rare athletic talent to be that sort of larger-than-life,
star quality, marquee figure than the "can't-live-with-him,
can't-live-without-him" personality named Steven Jackson.
There's no ambivalence with him. You either love him or you hate him. He either
makes your blood boil or your blood rush. Either way, though, you watch him.
From any way you look at it, that's all win-win for the Rams.
