RAMS : Berry Heads Straight to the Corner

IRVINE â€”  A holdout here, an injury there and all of a sudden the Latin Berry Experiment has accelerated from a gradual transition to an instant opportunity.

With No. 1 pick Todd Lyght unsigned and unlikely to be in camp before August and with Darryl Henley sidelined indefinitely because of a pulled left hamstring, the Rams’ right cornerback spot is suddenly open.

Berry has gotten the first shot with the first-team defense, a fairly quick move up the depth chart.

A year ago in his rookie season, Berry, a former running back, admittedly was confused by his new assignment at cornerback. The Rams kept him on the roster, but they winced every time they had to send him out to defend.

“I can say it now--I was very lost out there,” Berry said Tuesday. “I was very lost, I was very afraid. I guess my biggest fear was I just didn’t want to screw up anything.

“I didn’t want to make a mistake, then it’d be my fault, my team lost a game because of what I did. I was very afraid of that. That was something I guess I had to get over.”

A year later, Berry is at least temporarily running ahead of career-long corners such as Plan B acquisitions Sammy Lilly and Rodney Thomas. If Berry is scared, he is not showing it.

“I think he’s still obviously learning,” said Coach John Robinson, who begun the Berry Experiment. “But last year, when you looked out there, a lot of times you’d go, ‘Will we live long enough to see him become a corner?’ Now you almost don’t think about it. You don’t see him as a running back.

“There’s a sleekness about him that the corner position has that wasn’t there last year. I think he’s on his way to being really good.”

Berry says it took a full year of practicing and playing for him to get used to playing defense. Berry, a third-round choice, was a running back at Oregon, but Robinson and the scouting staff decided to try him at cornerback.

“I’m starting to not like the offense as much anymore,” Berry said. “I’m starting to finally believe that when (quarterback Jim) Everett throws the ball, he’s not throwing it to me.

“All that stuff is coming around--I’m starting to get a little bit of a (defensive) attitude now, and it took a year. I’m not silly enough to believe that I’m totally a corner yet, either. Too many times I’ve heard other guys, and they’ve been playing the spot all their life just about, and they’re still saying I’m having a helluva time at this.

“I’m not stupid enough to believe that I’m going to go out there after only a year and expect some big miracle. Every day I just go out there, work hard at it and hopefully open some eyes.”

After this past off-season, when it seemed the Rams collected a new, speedy cornerback every other day, Berry knew he had to catch some eyes in training camp. He started camp as maybe the sixth cornerback on a team that will keep five at most.

“I looked at it as a chance to compete with a bunch of guys, and if I could survive that then I could be proud of myself,” Berry said. “It’s a real funny spot. We just want to try to have some depth at the spots, I guess, not let what happened last year with Jerry (Gray) going down and then we have to go into a frenzy, ‘What do we do?’

“I’m just going to keep playing because I know Darryl’s going to be back, (and) I’m going to keep competing with him for the spot.

“But I’m not going to give up anything, either. I kind of like it there.”

Lyght’s agent sent a new proposal to the Rams Tuesday. It is believed to be worth about $5.5 million over four years, an average of slightly less than $1.4 million a season.

The Rams’ last offer, which came late last week, was a four-year package worth $900,000 a season, including a signing bonus around $1.75 million.

Agent Bob Woolf, who is also negotiating the contract of linebacker Mike Croel, who was taken one pick ahead of Lyght by the Denver Broncos, did not sound too worried about keeping either out of camp for an extended period.

“You know, I was looking at what happened (last season) and I was surprised how many people signed last year in September,” Woolf said Tuesday. “Maybe six or seven. So everyone’s (NFL teams) panicking there now, but it’s just the same as last year.”

The Rams signed defensive end George Bethune Tuesday in time for him to make morning practice, reducing the number of unsigned players to seven: Lyght, Strickland, offensive linemen Tom Newberry, Gerald Perry, Irv Pankey and Robert Cox and fullback Buford McGee.