Buffalo’s Bruce Smith Having Troubles

Jim Haslett, a 6-foot-3, 236-pound human wall, stretched out his arms and formed a protective screen in front of Bruce Smith.

“Don’t talk to him, Bruce. Don’t say anything,” the Buffalo Bills’ linebacker instructed his rookie teammate, who sat in front of his locker slicing tape from his leg.

Smith joined in the joke, yelling out only his name and Social Security number -- like a National Football League prisoner-of-war.

Indeed, he has been embattled lately.

As the No. 1 pick in the NFL college draft, Smith felt the pressure of the pros as soon as he signed a four-year, $2.4 million deal with the Bills last spring. The heat has left him blistered on occasion.

The savage pass-rushing abilities he displayed at Virginia Tech, where he won the Outland Trophy as the nation’s top interior lineman, are no longer talked about as much as his liabilities against the run.

And for a player who has “pretty much (always) been on successful teams,” Smith has the added distraction of playing for a team that lost its first six games before finally beating Indianapolis last Sunday.

“No matter how well you play,” he said, “if the team is not doing well itself, even if you played pretty well, it still makes you feel that you didn’t play very well or you didn’t do enough.”

With a team-leading three sacks, he knows he cannot singlehandedly turn his team around.

“What I’m concerned about right now is taking care of my job,” said the defensive end, “and everything else will follow. I’m not going to worry about all that savior stuff.”

The Bills insisted all along that Smith would not start, even though last year’s starter at right defensive end, Ken Johnson, had an abysmal year and the team had only 25 sacks.

But when a team in desperate need of box-office appeal signs a rookie to a million-dollar deal, there is pressure to play him. And so Smith found himself in the opening-day lineup.

The Bills lost that game 14-9 to the San Diego Chargers. Smith didn’t look out of place, but neither did he record any sacks.

Then came a 42-3 humiliation by the New York Jets. Smith, who would later acknowledge he “had a bad day at the office,” looked very weak against a relentless Jets running game that gathered 288 yards against Buffalo.

Coach Kay Stephenson said at the time that Smith still had not learned to play the run and replaced him in the starting lineup with another Smith. Don Smith.

An angry Bruce Smith was quoted afterward as saying, “Nothing will ever make amends for that.”

Stephenson, meanwhile, was fired Oct. 1 and replaced by Hank Bullough. But Smith continued to have problems.