It's a great time for football. The best weekend of the NFL season. Four games, with the potential payoff of Brady vs. Manning and Favre vs. Romo.

This used to be the time of year that we used to talk about the Rams. Remember those days?
That 1999-2004 run was fun, even though it meant lots of extra work for us in the sports department. That first year was unexpectedly magical, and Mike Martz kept the next few years interesting--you never knew what the man would say, but it was always interesting. "Shoot, we'll fix that," "Yeah but..." (or is that "yabbit" ). And look where we are now.

As someone who works in the media, I'm pretty sure I don't like the way the Rams have handled their offseason. Come to think of it, as a fan I know I don't like the way they've handled things.

They sure seem to be taking for granted that fans will remain loyal. But remember that the origin of the word fan is "fanatic". How is this franchise cultivating fanaticism? Let's take stock of what's happened since time ran out in Arizona on December 30th:

1. Head coach Scott Linehan did his end of the year wrap-up with the media by phone. That's fine if you work for a newspaper or a radio station, but in TV we like to see faces. That's one reason you didn't see us air any clips from that teleconference.

2. It's been reported that Linehan will be back for a third season, and that he's due to have a meeting with the front office brass (out in L.A., mind you) about how they're going to attack the 2008 season. But that meeting keeps getting pushed back. And pushed back. Well, I certainly hope that plans for 2008 aren't hinging on this summit meeting.

3. P.R. boss Rick Smith did confirm the report about the firing of offensive line coach Paul Boudreau and the "reassignment" of offensive coordinator Greg Olson, but there hasn't been any official word from management.

It would seem to me that after posting the worst record in St. Louis football history, that more visible steps would be taken to show that this franchise is interested in keeping its fans. But I'm not quite sure if we're just supposed to take the word of this management team (with their stellar record of six non-losing seasons the thirteen years they've been here.) that they're going to pull this team out of the mud. I know that the fans here want to see something substantive. That it looks like the Rams are trying and not just taking the hard-earned fan dollars of St. Louis fans for granted.

It has happened before. Coming off a 4-12 season, the Rams made some changes to Dick Vermeil's coaching staff, made a splash in the free agent pool, made some savvy draft picks and pulled off the best trade in franchise history. It all added up to a Super Bowl win and the beginning of a fun, wild ride. But it was definitely a series of proactive moves.

So what's the plan this time? ¶ 5:49 PM