Rams Bring Knox Back, Hope Wins Will Follow : Pro football: Coach who guided the team to five straight division titles in the ‘70s regains his old job and also gets power over personnel decisions.
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Rams Bring Knox Back, Hope Wins Will Follow : Pro football: Coach who guided the team to five straight division titles in the ‘70s regains his old job and also gets power over personnel decisions.
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BEVERLY HILLS —
Fourteen years to the month after happily accepting his resignation, the Rams on Wednesday placed the franchise’s future in the hands of Chuck Knox, the coach they believe is the best and perhaps only man to lead them back from desolation.
Knox, 59, introduced by club owner Georgia Frontiere at a news conference in Beverly Hills, quickly moved to assure everyone that he was in control of the team’s direction and brushed away the bitter parting after the 1977 season as an irrelevant relic.
He said that, although he had heard from other teams looking for a coach, the Rams were his only choice, so he signed a four-year deal worth about $2.9 million.
The Rams were the first team to give him a head coaching job, in 1973, and after stints in Buffalo and Seattle, he said he has every intention of ending his career where it started, in Southern California.
“When I started out 19 years ago, I stood here, before you, and everyone was asking Chuck Who?” Knox said Wednesday.
“Nineteen years later, as I’m talking to you, I have still the burning desire in my gut to want to win, to want to be competitive, to want to get the job done. I just feel that it’s the right thing for me, the right organization, the right people. . . . We’ll get it done.”
Knox, who resigned last month after nine seasons with the Seahawks, was given the extra title of team vice president by the Rams and said that he is “accountable” for the draft, Plan B and other personnel decisions.
Knox said he probably will bring in a personnel director, but he will retain final authority and responsibility. Knox and the Rams emphasized that he has full power to fire or retain holdover assistant coaches from former coach John Robinson’s staff and to bring in members of his former staff in Seattle.
This situation is in direct contrast to the unwritten understanding between the Rams and Robinson, who did not have an executive title, did not have a regular line of communication to Frontiere and privately complained that he did not have enough power within the organization.
Once Robinson resigned, the Rams quickly decided that Knox, the son of a millworker from Sewickley, Pa., and the sixth-winningest active coach in the NFL, was their only choice.
Knox is known as a players’ coach and a man who gives and tolerates no nonsense from his team, a trait the Rams felt was necessary to coach a team that skipped out of control this past season.
“He has such integrity and such honesty and is so direct,” a beaming Frontiere said. “You never have to wonder if there’s any underlying meaning. You always know exactly where he stands. It’s a good feeling. It’s a good, honest feeling.
“There was never any doubt. I wouldn’t let myself even think about anybody else. I just concentrated all my thoughts on getting him. I don’t know what we would have done if he had turned us down.”
The Rams first interviewed Knox on Dec. 28, the day after his resignation from the Seahawks, and interviewed only one other candidate, offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren of the San Francisco 49ers, before offering Knox the job last Saturday. He accepted Monday, then signed Wednesday.
Knox, who has made dramatic personnel moves almost every time he has taken over a team, said he will have to evaluate a Ram squad that finished the season with 10 consecutive losses.
His first priority, which he said should be finished by late this week, is to put together his staff.
“It’s pretty new to me, and I’m not one just to go out here and start cutting here, cutting there and doing things without reason, without logic in them,” Knox said.
“I like to take a look and see where we’re at right now, what move we can make to go where we want to go to. At least see if we can step in that direction and proceed in a logical manner from there.
“I’m not interested in stirring things up. I want to take a look and do things for good reason. . . . I don’t think we’ve ever had a problem motivating our football players. Our teams played hard, they’ve competed hard. I don’t think that came about because we stirred things up.”
After taking the Rams to five consecutive division titles from 1973 through ’77, all the while hearing loud complaints about his inability to get to the Super Bowl and his conservative offensive style, Knox left the Rams for the Buffalo Bills.
Although winning division titles perhaps was not enough in the 1970s, Knox suggested that duplicating the feat “would be a good place to start” with the current Rams, who have compiled an 8-24 record the past two seasons, including 1991’s dismal 3-13. Knox is the only coach to have taken three different teams to the playoffs.
His 1977 departure was triggered by difficulties with owner Carroll Rosenbloom, Frontiere’s late husband, who urged Knox to play more exciting football.
“It wasn’t a bitter situation at all,” Knox said of his relationship with Rosenbloom. “It was just a meeting of minds. . . . I do remember one thing Carroll Rosenbloom said to me: ‘You might be coming back here some day.’ ”
Knox had a 54-15-1 record with the Rams, and he was 3-5 in the postseason. Overall, he has a regular-season record of 171-114-1.
This time, the team made sure that there would be no confusion over where the buck stops.
“I think it’s clearly defined,” said Executive Vice President John Shaw, who headed the coaching search. “I’m sorry it wasn’t so clearly defined with John (Robinson), because he was obviously a very good coach.”
Knox, while not conceding that his run-the-ball-and-play-defense style in his first tenure with the Rams was a mistake, did hint that he has changed a bit. He said he has opened up offensively to the point where, he kidded Wednesday, his nickname changed from “Ground Chuck” to “Air Knox.”
“Like everybody else, I like to think I’ve grown as a football person,” Knox said. “I like to think I’ve profited by the mistakes that I’ve made. As you know, football is not an exact science. Coaching is not an exact science--mistakes are made.
“You always hope you can learn from those mistakes.”
Through the years, Knox has been criticized as a coach who can take a team to the playoffs but not to the big game.
“Certainly it bothers me,” Knox said. “I’d like to be in that game (the Super Bowl), play in it, win it. I’m not concerned about the critics, I’m just concerned about me, personally.”
Then, Knox hearkened back to his first moment in the sun, to answer a question about how long he can go on.
“You know, age is just a number,” Knox said. “I feel about like I felt when I stood up here 19 years ago.
“I’m not thinking about a soft chair in the front office, I’m thinking about a hard chair with a projector and a tape machine and the players, practice, training camp . . . all of that.”
Career Record With Rams
Year Team W L T Pct. 1973 Rams 12 2 0 .857 1974 Rams 10 4 0 .714 1975 Rams 12 2 0 .857 1976 Rams 10 3 1 .750 1977 Rams 10 4 0 .714 5 Years 54 15 1 .778
Knox at a Glance
Born: April 27, 1932 in Sewickley, Pa.
College: Juniata (Pennsylvania)
Head Coaching Experience: L.A. Rams, Buffalo Bills, Seattle Seahawks.
NFL Coaching Record: 171-114-1 (19 seasons)
#HelmetHornsMatter
“Well, the color is good, I like the metallic blue,” Youngblood recently said while laughing, via NFL Journal. “The horn is terrible. It looks like a ‘C.’ When I first saw it on the logo I honestly thought it was a Charger logo.
“Now when I see it on the helmet, it just isn’t a ram horn. There is no distinct curl like a mature ram horn. I don’t know how the Rams could get that wrong. That is your symbol and it has been for what? Seventy years or more? Longer than I have been alive? It’s just not us, it’s not the Rams.”---Mr. Ram Jack Youngblood
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2023 05:31AM by Ramsdude.
link
BEVERLY HILLS —
Fourteen years to the month after happily accepting his resignation, the Rams on Wednesday placed the franchise’s future in the hands of Chuck Knox, the coach they believe is the best and perhaps only man to lead them back from desolation.
Knox, 59, introduced by club owner Georgia Frontiere at a news conference in Beverly Hills, quickly moved to assure everyone that he was in control of the team’s direction and brushed away the bitter parting after the 1977 season as an irrelevant relic.
He said that, although he had heard from other teams looking for a coach, the Rams were his only choice, so he signed a four-year deal worth about $2.9 million.
The Rams were the first team to give him a head coaching job, in 1973, and after stints in Buffalo and Seattle, he said he has every intention of ending his career where it started, in Southern California.
“When I started out 19 years ago, I stood here, before you, and everyone was asking Chuck Who?” Knox said Wednesday.
“Nineteen years later, as I’m talking to you, I have still the burning desire in my gut to want to win, to want to be competitive, to want to get the job done. I just feel that it’s the right thing for me, the right organization, the right people. . . . We’ll get it done.”
Knox, who resigned last month after nine seasons with the Seahawks, was given the extra title of team vice president by the Rams and said that he is “accountable” for the draft, Plan B and other personnel decisions.
Knox said he probably will bring in a personnel director, but he will retain final authority and responsibility. Knox and the Rams emphasized that he has full power to fire or retain holdover assistant coaches from former coach John Robinson’s staff and to bring in members of his former staff in Seattle.
This situation is in direct contrast to the unwritten understanding between the Rams and Robinson, who did not have an executive title, did not have a regular line of communication to Frontiere and privately complained that he did not have enough power within the organization.
Once Robinson resigned, the Rams quickly decided that Knox, the son of a millworker from Sewickley, Pa., and the sixth-winningest active coach in the NFL, was their only choice.
Knox is known as a players’ coach and a man who gives and tolerates no nonsense from his team, a trait the Rams felt was necessary to coach a team that skipped out of control this past season.
“He has such integrity and such honesty and is so direct,” a beaming Frontiere said. “You never have to wonder if there’s any underlying meaning. You always know exactly where he stands. It’s a good feeling. It’s a good, honest feeling.
“There was never any doubt. I wouldn’t let myself even think about anybody else. I just concentrated all my thoughts on getting him. I don’t know what we would have done if he had turned us down.”
The Rams first interviewed Knox on Dec. 28, the day after his resignation from the Seahawks, and interviewed only one other candidate, offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren of the San Francisco 49ers, before offering Knox the job last Saturday. He accepted Monday, then signed Wednesday.
Knox, who has made dramatic personnel moves almost every time he has taken over a team, said he will have to evaluate a Ram squad that finished the season with 10 consecutive losses.
His first priority, which he said should be finished by late this week, is to put together his staff.
“It’s pretty new to me, and I’m not one just to go out here and start cutting here, cutting there and doing things without reason, without logic in them,” Knox said.
“I like to take a look and see where we’re at right now, what move we can make to go where we want to go to. At least see if we can step in that direction and proceed in a logical manner from there.
“I’m not interested in stirring things up. I want to take a look and do things for good reason. . . . I don’t think we’ve ever had a problem motivating our football players. Our teams played hard, they’ve competed hard. I don’t think that came about because we stirred things up.”
After taking the Rams to five consecutive division titles from 1973 through ’77, all the while hearing loud complaints about his inability to get to the Super Bowl and his conservative offensive style, Knox left the Rams for the Buffalo Bills.
Although winning division titles perhaps was not enough in the 1970s, Knox suggested that duplicating the feat “would be a good place to start” with the current Rams, who have compiled an 8-24 record the past two seasons, including 1991’s dismal 3-13. Knox is the only coach to have taken three different teams to the playoffs.
His 1977 departure was triggered by difficulties with owner Carroll Rosenbloom, Frontiere’s late husband, who urged Knox to play more exciting football.
“It wasn’t a bitter situation at all,” Knox said of his relationship with Rosenbloom. “It was just a meeting of minds. . . . I do remember one thing Carroll Rosenbloom said to me: ‘You might be coming back here some day.’ ”
Knox had a 54-15-1 record with the Rams, and he was 3-5 in the postseason. Overall, he has a regular-season record of 171-114-1.
This time, the team made sure that there would be no confusion over where the buck stops.
“I think it’s clearly defined,” said Executive Vice President John Shaw, who headed the coaching search. “I’m sorry it wasn’t so clearly defined with John (Robinson), because he was obviously a very good coach.”
Knox, while not conceding that his run-the-ball-and-play-defense style in his first tenure with the Rams was a mistake, did hint that he has changed a bit. He said he has opened up offensively to the point where, he kidded Wednesday, his nickname changed from “Ground Chuck” to “Air Knox.”
“Like everybody else, I like to think I’ve grown as a football person,” Knox said. “I like to think I’ve profited by the mistakes that I’ve made. As you know, football is not an exact science. Coaching is not an exact science--mistakes are made.
“You always hope you can learn from those mistakes.”
Through the years, Knox has been criticized as a coach who can take a team to the playoffs but not to the big game.
“Certainly it bothers me,” Knox said. “I’d like to be in that game (the Super Bowl), play in it, win it. I’m not concerned about the critics, I’m just concerned about me, personally.”
Then, Knox hearkened back to his first moment in the sun, to answer a question about how long he can go on.
“You know, age is just a number,” Knox said. “I feel about like I felt when I stood up here 19 years ago.
“I’m not thinking about a soft chair in the front office, I’m thinking about a hard chair with a projector and a tape machine and the players, practice, training camp . . . all of that.”
Career Record With Rams
Year Team W L T Pct. 1973 Rams 12 2 0 .857 1974 Rams 10 4 0 .714 1975 Rams 12 2 0 .857 1976 Rams 10 3 1 .750 1977 Rams 10 4 0 .714 5 Years 54 15 1 .778
Knox at a Glance
Born: April 27, 1932 in Sewickley, Pa.
College: Juniata (Pennsylvania)
Head Coaching Experience: L.A. Rams, Buffalo Bills, Seattle Seahawks.
NFL Coaching Record: 171-114-1 (19 seasons)
#HelmetHornsMatter
“Well, the color is good, I like the metallic blue,” Youngblood recently said while laughing, via NFL Journal. “The horn is terrible. It looks like a ‘C.’ When I first saw it on the logo I honestly thought it was a Charger logo.
“Now when I see it on the helmet, it just isn’t a ram horn. There is no distinct curl like a mature ram horn. I don’t know how the Rams could get that wrong. That is your symbol and it has been for what? Seventy years or more? Longer than I have been alive? It’s just not us, it’s not the Rams.”---Mr. Ram Jack Youngblood
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2023 05:31AM by Ramsdude.
