Tinoisamoa gets 5-year extension from Rams
BY JEFF GORDON
STLTODAY.COM SPORTS COLUMNIST
10/11/2006
Rams coach Scott Linehan believes in keeping as many key free agents as possible. Maintaining the team nucleus is a big priority for him.
Linehan underscored that by happily announcing
Pisa Tinoisamoa’s 5-year contract extension, which was finalized Wednesday.
“We’re really glad he will be a Ram for years to come,” Linehan said. “He exemplifies what we are looking for in a player in our program, in a teammate, all those things.
“We always want to start with keeping our own. One of the biggest mistakes teams maybe make –- and I’ve been on some teams that didn’t fight hard enough for our own -– is to let good people go. There is a lot in that evaluation. It’s not just great football players. It’s great teammates, great workers, guys that exemplify what you are promoting.”
Tinoisamoa has really impressed Linehan and his staff while playing through a painful elbow injury.
“He does everything with his actions,” Linehan said. “He inspired coaches by the way he plays the game, goes to work every day. Never once complained. Sometimes guys get in contract years, you worry about them being distracted by it. Pisa just comes to work every day with his hard hat on.
“I’ll never forget him . . . after he injured his elbow in that last home game, I thought he would be done. That is one of the most painful things. He went back in after they taped him up. He just refused to come out. Those kind of things are just an example of they kind of player he is.”
Linehan also expressed great interest in getting
Leonard Little re-signed so he, too, could forgo free agency after the season.
“I just visited with Leonard about it,” Linehan said. “He’s one of the guys, as we talk about keeping guys around, as we look at it is as a franchise and as a team, he is one of the guys that is a glue to this team, not only our defense. It would make me just as happy if we could talk about Leonard being here. I think Leonard will, at some point. It is easier said than done. You have to do these things one by one.
“Leonard is one of the most underrated defensive ends in all of pro football. He destroyed a game that I was on the other side of one time. I’ll never forget it.”
Here are Linehan’s thoughts on other topics:
On the status of injured cornerbacks Travis Fisher and Fakhir Brown:
“They are going to be questionable. Both did, in a limited basis, quite a bit of work today. Fakhir a little more than Travis. Travis has a little swelling there in that quad-groin area. We’re going day-to-day with him.”
On Fisher’s chronic groin injuries:
“He made a lot of progress in that area during the offseason with his training, his rehab, maintaining a lot of things in the stretching. He gets a lot of adjustments. He has specialists working on him, from chiropractors to stretch specialists, masseuses, the whole thing. He has done pretty well to this point.”
On the status of injured fullback Paul Smith:
“He had to have some surgery to correct the damage that was around his eye. The surgery happened yesterday. It went real well. It looked like it could be anywhere from three to five weeks for him, until some of the damage is healed.”
On the play of fullback Madison Hedgecock in Smith’s absence:
“He is finally 100 percent. It shows you how hard it is to get back from those high ankle sprains. For three or four games, he was working that way, but he wasn’t able to push off on that ankle the way the guy that plays that position needs to. Sunday was a good example of how he can play when he is 100 percent.”
On playing the Seahawks:
“You always look forward to playing the team that sets the bar. The bar was set by Seattle last season in the NFC and our division. They are certainly the team to beat not only in our division, but the entire NFC. It’s a pretty big challenge. It’s also one we’ve been looking forward to.”
On Seattle missing running back Shaun Alexander:
“You don’t just replace the MVP when he gets injured, but they’ve done a nice job . . . of finding ways of being productive. Maurice Morris has shown signs of the type of back he can be. He’s going to get a number of carries, I’m sure. They’ve had two weeks to evaluate how to do that. What happens is, when you lose a player like that, you don’t make the adjustment overnight. You go to your strength, which is a pretty good receiving corps. They just added (injured tight end) Jerramy Stevens to the mix, which gives them more versatility there. They have one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL playing for them. That still gives them an advantage.”
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