Rams Assistant Announces Retirement
by Rams Nation's Barry Waller
The Rams announced today that Rams running backs coach/offensive coordinator
Bobby Jackson has decided to retire, rather than accept the contract extension
offered by head coach Mike Martz.
Jackson, 62, has held the title of offensive coordinator under Mike Martz,
but has not really taken over the actualy duties of that job with Martz continuing
to be in charge of his offensive game plan after becoming head coach in 2000.
Jackson will be replaced as running backs coach by Wilbert Montgomery, who
held that job under Dick Vermeil before being moved to tight ends coach when
Martz brought in Jackson, who he had worked with in Washington, in 2000.
Though Jackson had a long and successful resume over 40 years of coaching,
he was unable to develop the young Rams backs behind Marshall Faulk into reliable
and productive runners, and Trung Canidate actually regressed last year, losing
his backup spot to a rookie, Lamar Gordon, who made too many mistakes to be
effective when Marshall was injured.
Hopefully Montgomery, a younger man than Jackson, who was a star halfback with
Vermeil's Eagles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, will be better able to relate
to the young Rams backs in 2003, andf especially solve the fumbling problems
that have plagued both Canidate and Gordon.
There has ben no announcement as to who will be the tight ends coach in 2003.