It was a rough first season on the job for Rams general manager Billy Devaney as his team wound up with a 1-15 record, worst in the NFL. The offseason hasn’t been much kinder.
Devaney and coach Steve Spagnuolo have been criticized this week by a pair of former Rams for disrespecting the team’s past. Jack Youngblood was upset that the team parted ways with trainer Jim Anderson and asked why they would “want to run off good people like that?”
Marshall Faulk also chimed in and told Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Devaney and Spagnuolo had photos of great players from Rams history removed from the team’s headquarters. He also accused them of creating a “cloak-and-dagger atmosphere” by shunning people who could be helpful to the organization.
Devaney spoke to Mike Sando of ESPN.com and denied that he and Spagnuolo were disrespectful of the team’s history.
“It always matters what great players’ opinions are as to what we are doing and how we are doing,” Devaney said. “Spags and I have a ton of respect for what they have accomplished and what they have meant to the Rams. They are always welcome. I have talked to Marshall in the past. I talked to Jack Youngblood when he was visiting this year.”
He said that the only pictures taken down were individual shots of current players because Spagnuolo wanted to emphasize team shots. Devaney said shots of Faulk, Kurt Warner and other Rams greats are still hanging at the headquarters.
The main issue here isn’t actually pictures or trainers or anything other than the fact that the Rams have won six games in the last three years. When you win, no one cares what pictures are hanging in the hallways because you’re getting credited with making a clean break from the past. When you lose, you’re soiling a once-proud tradition.
Depending on what the next Rams owners have in mind, Devaney might not be the one making the decorating decisions for much longer anyway.