By Jeff Gordon
STLTODAY.COM SPORTS COLUMNIST
Friday, Feb. 01 2008
Roland Williams’ eyes lit up when he heard the Rams hired Al Saunders as the
team’s offensive coordinator.
Williams played tight end with the Rams during their “Greatest Show on Turf”
days. Saunders wasn’t Williams’ position coach -– he worked with the wide
receivers -– but he had a big impact on Mike Martz’s explosive offense.
“Al Saunders, he brought the best out of
Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce and
everybody around them,” Williams said. “He’s going to give the offense a new
edge finishing plays off.”
Saunders brings creditability to the coaching staff and hope to the Rams’
locker room. From his success here, he went to Kansas City to run a powerful
Chiefs offense for Dick Vermeil, too.
Hiring Saunders was a bold move by Rams coach Scott Linehan, who ran the
offense during his first two years at the helm. (Saunders’ predecessor, Greg
Olson, was a coordinator in name only.)
“I think Scott is committed to winning,” Saunders said. “He wants to win. And
he reached out and said he thought he needed some help in this area, and he
felt like I was the person that could help him. And he felt very comfortable
with that.”
Linehan insists he will turn Saunders loose on the offense, so the ’08 Rams
ought to be a whole lot more exciting. Al has a lot of Mad Mike in him.
“My philosophy of offense is probably you could look at Kansas City and say
that's what it is in a nutshell,” Saunders told reporters during a conference
call. “I really believe in being a very diversified team and having the ability
to be balanced and be able to run the ball and pass the football with equal
efficiency.
“It's about players and match-ups in this game, and I think you really have to
do a great job of adjusting your personnel to the system that you run and
taking advantage of the playmakers that you have. I think the offense is fun
to play in. I think the fans enjoy watching it. I think it's entertaining. And
hopefully it will be very productive.
“I think in the period of time I was in Kansas City over that five-year period
I think we were the most productive offense in the National Football League at
that time and the highest-scoring offense. I'd like to think that maybe we
could do some of those things and be successful in St. Louis like we were in
'99, 2000, and it's a very versatile offense. And I think it takes advantage
of the playmakers and gives them a chance to do some things with the ball in
space.”
But do the Rams have the weapons to score like the Chiefs and the Martz-era
Rams did?
“In most of the successful offenses in football, you have a left tackle,
running back and you have a quarterback and a receiver that is the go-to guy
you can count on,” Saunders said.
The Rams will have
Orlando Pace at left tackle, assuming he can regain and
maintain his health.
Marc Bulger is a former Pro Bowl quarterback and Torry
Holt and Isaac Bruce just had productive years, despite injuries and advancing
age.
Then there is
Steven Jackson, one of the best running/receiving backs in the
league.
“I think he is a special player,” Saunders said. “And I think everybody would
agree with that. He's one of those unique guys, much like the success in the
past has been with Marshall Faulk with the tremendous things he did as a
three-dimensional player; he was a runner, pass receiver and blocker. And we
had Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson in Kansas City. We adjusted when Priest got
hurt; we adjusted the offense to take care of the skills of Larry Johnson who
was really a downhill runner and Priest was a three-dimensional player.”
The Rams will need to get the offensive line healthy, of course, and freshen up
the receiver and quarterback corps. Saunders will have to dive right in, assess
what the team really has on the offensive side of the ball and begin making his
case for upgrades.
There is so much to do. But at least the Rams organization took one giant step
in the right direction.
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