Thursday, October 7 Rams off to hair-raising start By Chris Mortensen Special to ESPN.com

Shortly after St. Louis Rams quarterback Trent Green went down for the year in a preseason game against the San Diego Chargers on Aug. 28, team president John Shaw started losing his hair. Really.

"I woke up with these huge bald spots almost overnight," Shaw said. "They (doctors) told me it was nerves."

	Rookie receiver Torry Holt is one of the Rams' speedy offensive additions.

Who could blame him? Shaw raised a lot of eyebrows when he invested $4 million per year in Green, who had delivered a near-perfect preseason by completing 28 of 32 passes against some pretty good defensive teams like the Raiders, Bears and Chargers.

Any glimmer of hope for Shaw, who had been battered in the past 10 years as proprieter of the NFL's losingest franchise, seemed vanished.

"To be honest, my expectations, which were modest anyway, definitely were adjusted," he said.

Last Sunday, after the Rams crushed the NFC champion Atlanta Falcons 35-7, Shaw was surprised to hear from coach Dick Vermeil that the team president had been awarded a game ball. The Rams have opened the season with two wins at home, and Shaw is no longer public enemy No. 1 in St. Louis.

"He's been through a lot," Vermeil said. "It's just something I want John Shaw to enjoy."

Listen here: The Rams are going to enjoy a serious run at a playoff spot in 1999.

Sure, quarterback Kurt Warner's bubble must burst. Rams publicist Rick Smith dug up the fact that only one other quarterback in NFL history has thrown six touchdown passes in his first two starts. The other was Dan Marino. Kurt Warner, we suspect, is no Dan Marino.

"No, but I believe that Kurt Warner is going to be this year's Trent Green," said Vermeil, echoing a statement he made to me shortly before the season.

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Green was one of the surprises stories of 1998 when he assumed the quarterback job in Washington and led the Redskins to six wins in their final nine games, throwing for 3,441 yards, 23 touchdowns and just 11 interceptions. He cashed his free-agent ticket in big with the Rams.

Here, Shaw gets a brilliant assist. He had a well-documented meeting with Vermeil in the offseason to get the coach to look at several in-house issues, one of them being the team's offensive coordinator. Vermeil already had decided to dismiss Jerry Rhome from the job, but preferred to promote tight ends coach Mike White to direct the offense.

Team sources say Shaw counseled Vermeil to look beyond his own staff. The logical candidate was Mike Martz, the Redskins quarterback coach who had been the Rams' receivers coach under Rich Brooks. Martz had gotten great production out of Isaac Bruce and Eddie Kennison, both of whom had struggled in Vermeil's first two seasons.

Vermeil was quite familiar with Martz, interviewed him, and hired him.

"That was Dick's doing, not mine," Shaw said.

Green was targeted as a free-agent quarterback because of his production with the same offense Martz would implement in St. Louis.

It was Martz and Vermeil who told Shaw not to panic when Green's knee blew out on the preseason hit by Chargers safety Rodney Harrison. Everyone else was screaming for a major acquisition for a quarterback. Not Martz.

"He told me Kurt Warner would get the job done, that he was better than what we've had before," Shaw said. "He thought we'd win some games with Kurt."

The key for Warner is that the Rams have loaded up on skill-position talent. Vermeil has handled Bruce wisely after the veteran receiver experienced hamstring problems in the coach's arguably overloaded training camp schedule. Kennison was traded, but the Rams used their No. 6 pick overall on North Carolina State wideout Torry Holt, who looks like the real deal. Az Hakim, another receiver, has speed to burn, and the acquisition of running back Marshall Faulk (for second- and fifth-round picks, no less) makes this offense pretty whole.

	“	Because this has been a losing organization, this is more meaningful. Any losing team has a fragile personality. But I feel like this is my team now. There are only nine guys in uniform that we lined up my first year here. I like the direction we're headed in, even if it's with Kurt Warner this year. I love the Kurt Warners of the world. ”
		— Rams coach Dick Vermeil

"I don't know what the deal was, but they (the Rams) just looked so much faster than us," lamented Falcons coach Dan Reeves after Sunday's loss. "I've been in his corner, his biggest fan, but he's even more ready to play than I thought he'd be this early," Vermeil said. "I thought it would take five, six games, for him to settle into it. He's very cool, very aware. I have never seen a guy this calm and cool two games into his NFL career."

That demeanor has not always been associated with Warner. Green Bay Packers GM Ron Wolf remembers Warner as a nervous, almost scared, free agent out of Northern Iowa. "He didn't even want to participate in seven-on-seven drills because he was afraid he'd mess up the snap count," Wolf said. "It's nice to see he's having success."

Warner and Co. also enjoyed near-flawless blocking against Atlanta. It now looks like Orlando Pace, the former first pick of the '97 draft, can compete with Jacksonville's Tony Boselli as the game's best left tackle. Pace shut down Falcons Pro Bowl defensive end Chuck Smith, just as he shut down Baltimore's Michael McCrary, another Pro Bowler who Boselli says is the toughest defensive end he faces each year.

Pace, Bruce, Faulk and Holt are all former No. 1 picks performing at those levels. But flip over to the defense, and former first-rounders like defensive ends Kevin Carter and Grant Wistrom, along with cornerback Todd Lyght, also are earning their paychecks.

Pay attention to the Rams. They get the San Francisco 49ers at home in two weekends. They just smashed the defending NFC West champion Falcons. Herein lies Dick Vermeil's problem this week: The Rams are on the road Sunday against the winless Cincinnati Bengals. The old Rams would not win this game, sandwiched between the 49ers and Falcons.

I think this is a new Rams team.

Mort Shorts