Battered Rams take on their old coach

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- His best running back has a sore ankle and his top lineman's torn hamstring might keep him out the rest of the year.

He's getting ready to have an injury-plagued, makeshift offensive line that was built for turf block for a third-team quarterback on natural grass.

If that's not enough, the wife of his most popular player is taking shots at him on the radio.

No wonder Mike Martz has white hair.

"We've got some hot coals out in back," said the coach of the star-crossed Rams. "I'm going to walk over them as soon as I'm done here. We're going to see how tough I really am."

Pretty tough, says Dick Vermeil, who hired him as offensive coordinator for the Rams (5-7) in 1999, the year they won the Super Bowl.

Now it's Vermeil, as coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, who'll be doing his best to add to the Rams' woes today. The Chiefs (6-6) must win to keep even a whiff of playoff hopes alive.

Besides the soap opera scenarios hovering over the Rams, this game will ripple with personal undercurrent.

There was plenty of resentment in the Rams' front office when Vermeil took the Chiefs job one year after unexpectedly retiring from St. Louis after the 1999 Super Bowl season.

It cost Vermeil the four-year, $2 million contract St. Louis had given him as a "consultant," and it cost the Chiefs a second- and third-round draft choice, a penalty laid down by the commissioner.

Vermeil and Martz insist they've remained close.

"I think Mike has demonstrated real strength in going through this kind of season and under the adversity he's been under due to injury and everything else," Vermeil said. "He has shown great leadership."

Martz said telephone conversations with Vermeil helped him get through the five-game skid at the beginning of the year.

"When you play or coach for Dick, you become a part of his family," Martz said.

But Vermeil does not deny a bit of lingering bitterness over the Rams' taking their grievance all the way to the commissioner.

"I was disappointed that it went to the NFL office ... for me to be given the right to coach again," he said. "That's all. I have a good relationship with those people and care a lot about them, and I think they care about me. It cost me a lot of money to go back to coaching."

One Rams player Vermeil might not have such a good relationship with is Jamie Martin, who'll be starting at quarterback. He once was cut by Vermeil with the Rams.

Kurt Warner, his injured hand barely strong enough to grip the ball, is back on the bench along with Marc Bulger, who went 5-0 in Warner's place but is sidelined with a sprained right finger.

"Injuries to the quarterback position puts you on a roller coaster," Martz said. "You don't have the consistency."

In his only start this year, a 37-13 loss to San Francisco, Martin hit 23 of 40 passes for 232 yards, with one TD and two interceptions.

"We weren't playing well as a team at that point, and I didn't do anything to help that out," Martin said. "I kind of had my own problems."

Vermeil insists it hardly matters who starts at quarterback.

"Any quarterback that Martz puts behind center is going to be efficient and play well. I think he's already proved that and he doesn't have to continue to prove it," he said.

An ankle injury will probably limit Marshall Faulk to coming off the bench, diminishing a much-anticipated showdown between him and Priest Holmes, the NFL rushing leader who's just four touchdowns short of Faulk's NFL record of 26.

Also out for the Rams is offensive tackle Orlando Pace. Plagued by injury and a constant need to shift players around, the line has given up 32 sacks, including eight last week in a loss to Philadelphia.

The Chiefs in the meantime are coming off the second-most lopsided victory in team history, a 49-0 shutout of Arizona.

"We've got a little momentum, and now we've got to sustain it," cornerback Eric Warfield said. "I don't care who the Rams have at quarterback. They still have all those other weapons."

Martz also spent the week dealing with Brenda Warner's charge in a radio interview that it was she, and not the coach, who insisted that her husband get an X-ray of his hand.

"It has been a crazy year," Martin said.