Rams Searching for the Perfect Middle Linebacker : Pro football: Kelm, Stams and Sanders each has a distinctive playing style and qualifications for the important job.

The Rams are looking for the next Mike Singletary, but Larry Kelm, Frank Stams and Glenell Sanders are too busy competing for the starting middle linebacker job to worry about t.

Even in a training camp designed to conjure competition out of complacency, the daily game of I-Can-Do-Better between the three evenly matched players is pressure-packed stuff.

Between now and the regular-season opener Sept. 1, any one of the three could win the job, which is the most integral piece in the Rams’ new, complex, attacking defensive scheme. Not only is this the fiercest battle for a job in camp, it is the most important.

Searching for Mike Singletarys, we are told, is never easy.

“It’ll work itself out,” linebackers coach Ronnie Jones said with a smile recently. “It’s three guys going head-to-head, and we’re going to pick one of them.”

Said Sanders: “It’s going to come down to the last second, last tenth of a second for them to decide who’s going to be the starter.”

It is also three players each with his own distinct playing style and philosophy, three guys from different molds.

Kelm is the smooth leader, a veteran of five seasons with the battle scars to prove it. Stams is the gate-crasher, a high-voltage player who loves to bolt into the backfield and inflict damage. Sanders is the steely eyed, quietly confident hitter who studied under Singletary, the Chicago Bear linebacker, in his rookie season last year.

The Rams can only play one of them, and the coaches say after the exhibition season ends and the starter has emerged, they will stick with him.

Of the three, Kelm is the favorite and has the most experience, Stams is probably the most talented physically and Sanders seems to have the cocksure mood of the position down pat.

“If me and Mike Singletary had come out of college at the same time,” Sanders said recently, “nobody might’ve ever heard of him.”

Make a statement such as that, and people take notice. In this crowded competition, the more coaches notice you, the better.

Said Jones: “That’s the type of attitude you love to see. We try to pride ourselves on defense as being a team (that) if we say something, we can back it up. He has now said it, the key will be whether he can back up that kind of a statement.”

Singletary, all three know, was the perfect blend of leadership, desire and physical ability. And without a middle linebacker to run it, the defense is rudderless. The middle linebacker makes all of the on-field defensive calls, the instant adjustments to whatever tricks the offense tries to pull.

Singletary remains a blend of Patton and pulverizer, and everyone who plays the position is defined by his ability to duplicate his leadership.

“Ultimately, the guy who can run the defense from the middle-linebacker spot is going to be the guy who probably steps ahead of the other two,” Jones said. “The guy who can make all the adjustments, the guy who can control what’s going on on the field . . .

“That’s one position where the intelligence factor is probably more important than the physical strengths of the player. But that’s where we are fortunate. We have three very smart players and we’re going to get a chance to play them basically even through the preseason and see which one comes to the top.”

For now, Kelm appears to have a slight edge because of his trustworthiness under fire. Ram Coach John Robinson calls Kelm, originally a fourth-round pick in 1987, a “master” at managing the defense.

Kelm, never the most physical player but always around the ball, called the signals for Fritz Shurmur’s Ram defenses the past few years, and he has shown new coordinator Jeff Fisher that he can do it now.

And because he knew he’d be asked to make more plays in a three-linebacker set as opposed to the Rams’ former four-linebacker scheme, Kelm spent his off-season working on speed and strength.

As long as Kelm tackles surely and doesn’t get beaten badly in pass coverage, he appears to have the inside track for the job. But that can change as swiftly as one misplay or one monster hit by one of the others.

So when he sees Stams kamikaze his way into a big play, or Sanders pursue across the field for a big hit, Kelm says it’s natural to feel a little anxious.

“Sure it is,” Kelm said. “One of the other guys makes a big play, you’re thinking, ‘Man, I’ve got to do something now, too.’

“Yeah, there’s more heat on you definitely. You’re out there and there’s a lot of our defense based on us automatically changing to something. There’s a lot of pressure on the guy who has to make the calls, and not only do you have to make the call, you have to go play.

“So you can’t be patting yourself on the back for making the right call against the right formation, then they hike the ball and wham .”

Stams, a second-round choice in 1989 who has been moved all over the field in various versions of the Ram defense, has missed several practices recently because of a sore muscle in his right leg, but he has made enough glittering plays to keep himself in the picture.

After playing end at Notre Dame, Stams has been slated at various points in his short pro career to be an outside pass-rusher, an outside linebacker, an inside linebacker in a 3-4 formation and now a middle linebacker in a 4-3. He says he’s comfortable in the middle, especially because in a 4-3 the middle linebacker has more freedom to roam instead of having to cement himself in particular lanes.

“I see him as a guy who loves to play the game, will turn it loose, run around, make some things happen,” Jones said. “But again, the key at that position is who can keep enough composure to get the right thing called at the right time and still play like a wild man.”

Said Stams: “I try to play on their side of the line of scrimmage. I don’t want them to see me as a linebacker who makes plays six, seven yards down the field. I think anybody can do that. I like to be a guy who can maybe make plays on the other side of the line of scrimmage, maybe anticipate the play a little bit.

“I’m kind of a free spirit and I kind of like to do things my own way, but I do see myself as a guy who can make the calls and get everybody right and get everybody on the same page.”

But perhaps the most intriguing player of the threesome is Sanders, who looks, in the words of Fisher, “like a Singletary clone,” because of his 6-foot body, his jolting hits and his intensity.

Sanders, 24, a Plan B acquisition who says he came to the Rams because they promised a shot at the starting job, has made the most big hits of the trio and is also the youngest.

“Up to this point, Glenell looks to be a straight-ahead plugger,” Jones said. “If a hole opens up, he’s going to burst through it and put his hat on someone.”

Sanders has also impressed the Rams with his intelligence. During their May mini-camp, Sanders asked Jones to go over the more than 20 blitz packages in the system, one by one, then watched without taking notes as Jones sped through them. When Jones, expecting Sanders to have missed some or most of his speech, quizzed Sanders on specifics, Sanders answered every question correctly.

“I have that ability,” Sanders said. “That’s no problem. Just like Chicago, same system they’ve got here, I learned it in a week. I’ve never had a problem picking it up or learning.