Rams News

Phillips is ready to move on

Thursday, August 27, 1998

By Jim Thomas
Of The Post-Dispatch
* Former Chief says he won't carry hard feelings into Friday's Governor's Cup game.

Joe Phillips has been plying his craft since 1986 - two years before the football Cardinals left St. Louis for the Arizona desert.

Watching him sweat and grunt through five hours worth of two-a-days in Macomb, Ill., it was easy to wonder how many plays are left in those 35-year-old legs.

"I've had a great career, a career I've enjoyed tremendously," said Phillips, a defensive tackle. "But I feel good physically. I'm healthy. I've had a good offseason training. I still feel like I'm a capable player."

The Kansas City Chiefs felt otherwise, releasing Phillips on Feb. 24. Two months later, he signed a two-year, $1.6 million contract with the Rams and is preparing for his 13th NFL season.

"I really want to end my career feeling good about it," Phillips said. "On the upswing."

That's not the way he went out in Kansas City.

"It started in January of '97 when I had knee surgery," Phillips said. "Marty (Schottenheimer) called me in two weeks later and said, `Look, you need to take a pay cut or you're gone.' I didn't feel that was an appropriate time to do that to somebody, because I was told it would be six to eight months before I could pass a physical with my knee."

So Phillips and the Chiefs structured a deal so "backloaded" for 1998 that Phillips knew he would never play for Kansas City beyond the '97 season. Phillips would have counted $2.5 million toward the Chiefs' salary cap in '98, including a $1 million roster bonus due March 1.

"So they knew that I was going to be gone, and I knew that I was going to be gone," Phillips said. "I really didn't have a choice. I would have left last year with Neil (Smith), and with Dan (Saleaumua), and with everybody else. But because of my health, I couldn't. I had to rehabilitate my knee. Knock on wood, it's doing well."

Phillips says he left Kansas City with no hard feelings. He loved the city. Loved playing for the Chiefs. Loved working for Carl Peterson, the team's president, general manager and CEO.

"There are a lot of people that I have extremely positive feelings for," Phillips said. "It's just the guy that called me in and told me, `This is the way it's going to be.' "

That, of course, would be Schottenheimer, the head coach.

"I felt that he completely betrayed the loyalty and hard work I had given him for five years," Phillips said. "In this business, you hear the word `loyalty' sometimes coming from coaches. That players aren't loyal. But a lot of players are loyal. They work very hard for people and would never break rank. But then, there are times that coaches do it.

"This was a particular time where I felt like my loyalty wasn't reciprocated. It's not a hard feeling. It's business. He made his decisions."

So look for Phillips to exchange handshakes with many of his former teammates in Friday's Governor's Cup game with the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. "It'll be a lot of fun," Phillips said. "I mean, I know those guys so well."

Just don't look for any postgame embrace between Phillips and Schottenheimer.

Phillips' legs might be deader than most after Dick Vermeil's rugged training camp at Western Illinois University. He's the second-oldest Ram behind Steve Bono, 36. But once he freshens up, the Rams expect him to be an effective run stuffer at 6 feet 5, 305 pounds in the defensive tackle rotation.

A stickler for conditioning, Phillips doesn't think he has lost much as a player. He's an avid weightlifter, who made Muscle & Fitness magazine's 1998 NFL Strength Team (along with teammate Ernie Conwell). This past offseason, he took up boxing, sparring with International Boxing Association champion Jimmy Matz.

Football at 30-something, "almost becomes easier in some ways, because you become more efficient at what you're doing," Phillips said. "Yeah, maybe you're not as spry as you were. Maybe you're not the same kind of guy in some ways physically. But you're able to do your job, and be almost as efficient at it, because you're more skilled."

Phillips and his wife, Cynthia, had a high profile in Kansas City. Both are attorneys - Joe still practices - and both were active in a variety of charities. Phillips had a radio show and a television show at various times during his six-year tenure as a Chief. Cynthia did a television pregame show before Chiefs night games and would like to get involved in TV in St. Louis.

Cynthia, son Joseph, 4, and daughter Marian, 2, are moving to St. Louis on Wednesday. Oldest daughter Ashley is staying in Kansas City to attend seventh grade, under the care of her grandmother and grandfather.

"It was time for us to move on," Cynthia said Thursday from Kansas City. "In some respects, it was very sad, because we are so involved. It was like losing a family member when we left the Chiefs."

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