Rams News

Rams offensive linemen
end their vow of silence
08/12 10:38 PM

By Jim Thomas
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

MACOMB, Ill. -- This just in from the Rams offensive line: the media boycott is lifted.
As the senior member of the group, right tackle Wayne Gandy said the boycott was his idea. He said it never was intended to be a season-long boycott, and that it was not a response to any media criticism.
Had he known it would have created such a ruckus, Gandy might have suggested something else.
``Maybe we should just have a slumber party,'' Gandy joked. ``Since I've been here the longest, and have the most experience, I guess everybody (on the line) looks to me to be sort of a leader or figurehead. Everybody kind of follows what I say.''
So Gandy came up with the media boycott idea as a way to build solidarity during training camp.
``Rather than going out every week and getting some pizza, we were trying to find something -- something where you have to give up something,'' Gandy said.
So Gandy, with the approval of his offensive linemates, decided to give up ``a little media attention. And that's what we came up with. So I said, `While we're here, until we break camp, we won't speak to the media.' It was never meant to be a season-long thing. You could get all the interviews Aug. 20.''
The Rams break camp Aug. 19, leaving Macomb for Rams Park in Earth City.
``Maybe this was the wrong thing,'' Gandy said. ``But in the position we are in as a team, as an offensive line, we needed something like that. It might not have had to go to these extremes.''
The boycott, which first became public knowledge Saturday, ``had nothing to do with what anybody wrote,'' Gandy said. ``It was an internal line decision. I think we made a little jump (in improved play) last year, and we're trying to make another step this year.
``But we're not in any position where we're the best line in football, beating our chests, and being able to say, `We're not speaking to anybody.' We're just trying to come together as an offensive line.''
After some urging from Rams team officials, Gandy decided to end the boycott after Orlando Pace broke ranks and decided to do an interview Wednesday with Anthony Munoz of ESPN. Earlier in the week, Gandy turned down an interview request from Munoz for the same ESPN story on Pace and the Rams offensive line.
Gandy said he was unaware that Pace had been interviewed until told by a team official during a break in Wednesday afternoon's practice at Western Illinois University. Pace apparently agreed to do the interview before the boycott. He taped a segment with Munoz on the practice field not long before the afternoon workout.
``Orlando is a big-time thing in St. Louis, and across the NFL,'' Gandy said. ``He carries a load. So maybe he felt he had to do it. And maybe he got advice to do it. I don't know. As a line, we're not holding that against him.''
Pace will not be fined by the line for violating the boycott.
``But since he made the move to be interviewed, I said after practice to the line, `We've got to talk to the media now,' '' Gandy said. ``It's disrespectful to talk to the national media and not talk to your own local paper or your own local radio. So we lifted all that.''

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