Dick Vermeil has eased up on the Rams this season.

The notoriously anal-retentive coach has loosened his, uh, approach this wonderous season, and the charismatic defensive tackle is one of the players whose advice he respects.

"The first thing I did was go see him," Farr said. "I said, 'We're practicing once a day. Please. If you get tense and tight, I'll go run for two miles with you. But don't make us practice twice.' "

Vermeil smiled. He told Farr the Rams would only be practicing four times in Atlanta -- over four days.

"That cloud that used to be over his head is gone," Farr said. "He took responsibility for turning this franchise around -- all by himself. You could see how that burnout thing came about. It all changed this year."

Changing is hard. Psychologists will tell you a child's emotional compass is set very early on. Most people have established their world view by their teenage years. With the age of 40 comes a built-in resistance to change. By 50, change might be a physical and mental impossibility. How many people of a certain age do you know who can't seem to assimilate the Internet?

How, really, did this happen with Vermeil?

Somehow during the offseason, at the age of 62, Vermeil stopped trying to will his football team to the top through the sheer force of effort. Against his better judgment, he went with the flow, as much as he would allow himself. He relaxed his vice-like grip on this team, and it responded. Funny how it always seems to go; when you stop pushing and grinding so hard for the thing you crave, it comes right to you.

For two years, it did not come close to working as well as Vermeil did. The Rams were 5-11 in 1997 and took another step back last season with a 4-12 record. Vermeil looked for all the world to be the dinosaur that people had theorized when he ended a 14-year absence and returned to NFL coaching.

"What he did was sacrifice a few good years for one great year. All the guys who didn't get with the program, they're all gone." -- D'Marco Farr on Dick Vermeil

"I can remember specifically the very first meeting I had with our squad in early April in coming back three years ago," Vermeil says. "I started off about 'trust me.' I said, 'I have surrounded myself with an experienced coaching staff that knows what it is doing, and we are going to win. I can't tell you how long it's going to take.'

"I don't know how many people listened, but I tell you this -- that there are just nine guys who will suit up Sunday who were on that roster when we took over. I didn't make any promises. I just asked them to trust and follow me."

As Vermeil notes, few followed. The players hated the new work ethic, the two-a-day drills in training camp. The full-speed, full uniform practices late each week. Often, winning will convince a player to suspend his disbelief when the load gets too heavy. In St. Louis, however, losing was still the modus operandi.

"What he did," Farr says, "was sacrifice a few good years for one great year. All the guys who didn't get with the program, they're all gone."

Vermeil could feel all those same issues that forced him to leave the Philadelphia Eagles converging again in St. Louis. He told his wife Carolyn that the Rams might be doing him a favor if they fired him. It wasn't fun, he said, getting your ass kicked like that.

One of the reasons Vermeil returned to the NFL was the manner in which he left it. The Eagles posted a 3-6 record in the strike-shortened season of 1982, and Vermeil exited, saying he couldn't bring himself to work 20-hour days anymore.

But, even though Rams president John Shaw wanted Vermeil gone after his early struggles in St. Louis, there was enough support in the braintrust to earn him one last chance to get it right.

Immediately, Vermeil's assistant coaches prevailed on him to lose struggling quarterback Tony Banks, a pet project. Mike Martz, the new offensive coordinator, helped convince Vermeil to look elsewhere. Trent Green was the anointed one.

Vermeil also agreed to lighten the load for players and coaches; training camp would be shorter, practices would include less contact. There was even an extra week's vacation for the coaches. He was seeing evidence that the players who had remained in St. Louis were embracing his message. Like a parent that senses his children are ready to make some of their own decisions, Vermeil took a half-step back. He actually listened when they came to him with problems.

"He changed with the times," said Rams cornerback Todd Lyght, who has been with the team since 1991. "He learned you have to keep the players fresh. The biggest thing, for me, was letting the players sleep in their own beds the night before a home game. We used to have to go to a hotel, but we convinced him this was the way to go."

The Rams won 13 games in the regular season, when Kurt Warner took over for the injured Green. They have advanced to the Super Bowl, where Vermeil's Eagles succumbed to the Raiders 19 years ago. Vermeil, who wears the 1980 NFC Championship ring on his hand, says he will retire it if the Rams beat the Titans. It would be a fitting symbol for the man who changed his spots just before it was too late.

Not that Vermeil is a soft-touch. Sure, he has burst into tears at least a dozen times this season, according to unofficial team estimates, but he's still the head coach.

"The (players) come to me to ask the coach for things," linebacker Mike Jones said. "I remember one time in December, it was very cold, so the guys sent me up to see coach about moving practice inside. When I asked, coach Vermeil was very causal and said OK. So then I said, 'Can we get the day off?'

"Coach said, 'Mike, even you have limits.' "