Off-Season Weight Reduction Plan Left Ram Receiver Ready : Hill Hopes to Fit Into Pass Plans

When tight end David Hill heard that Steve Bartkowski was coming and Coach John Robinson had taken a solemn oath to restore the forward pass to the Rams’ repertoire, he decided to shape up.

“I took off 32 pounds so I could move around a little better and maybe be more effective as a pass receiver,” Hill said.

But the only benefit Hill sees so far is that “now I fit into some of the clothes that I had to put up in my closet a couple years ago.”

He has caught only three passes all season. In his Pro Bowl days at Detroit, that was barely a good Sunday afternoon. Maybe he’s lost so much weight that the quarterbacks can’t find him anymore.

It’s a shame, considering the sacrifice involved. David Hill going on a diet is an event. He probably ate his way out of Detroit, where his weight was a very sensitive subject, but he looked just fine to Robinson when he arrived from the Lions in 1983 and broke all the scales.

If Robinson had wanted a ballet dancer, he would have gone to the Soviet Union. No, he wanted Hill to be Eric Dickerson’s bodyguard. The bigger the better.

By last season, with Hill clearing the way, Dickerson had run for miles and miles of yardage, and Hill was happy and uninhibited playing at 270 pounds, which is a fearsome sight on the run. If he earned a reputation as perhaps “the best blocking tight end in football,” fine, but now he wonders if the tight end is still an eligible receiver.

In his first three seasons with the Rams, he caught 28, 31 and 29 passes. At his present rate, he’ll finish with 6 or 7. Of course, nobody else is catching many passes, either. Tony Hunter, the other tight end, and Ron Brown share the team lead with 15 each.

“Things just haven’t worked out,” Hill says.

Worse, he believes that his blocking is less effective at 248.

“I’m taking a little damage blocking because I’ve lost that much weight,” he said. “I’ve been having some shoulder pains. I still feel that I’m effective blocking--maybe not the crunching blocks where I hit somebody and knock ‘em on the ground--but I still feel very strong.

“I would like to be more involved in the passing. I think I could do some good things for the team, underneath linebackers. Tony Hunter’s more of a deep threat, but I can be effective 10, 15 or 20 yards down the field, finding zones, using the experience I have.

“Maybe I’ll have to start bribing the quarterback.”

First, Hill will have to find out who the quarterback is.

Hill, 32, has teamed with five passers in four years with the Rams, and a sixth, Jim Everett, is warming up in the bullpen.

“We did a lot during training camp and preseason trying to get the ball to the tight ends, but we seem to have gone away from that,” Hill said.

“It’s not as disappointing to me as much as it is just frustrating because I know it’s there. We’ll have good practices during the week, throwing the ball, and then get in a game and things don’t seem to work out.”

Dick Coury, the first-year quarterback coach, is in charge of the passing game.

“He changed it, but not much,” Hill said. “One thing he did do, he got me out running routes, whether I’m catching the ball or not. I like that part of it. Originally, I thought it was more ball-control . . . work underneath and pull the linebackers up, then throw the ball over their heads. That’s the way I perceived it, but I’m not on the coaching staff so I really don’t know.

“Please put it in there that I’m not questioning what they’re doing at all. It’s not up to me to do that. I go out there and play the best I can every week. A lot of people say, ‘What’s wrong with the passing game?’ I know we have the talent. We’re just not getting it done.”

Hill believes the absence of holdout Henry Ellard has been a factor.

“He’s such a threat. You can throw him a hitch or quick screen outside and he’s a threat every time to put it in the end zone. But so is Ron Brown. We’ve been a step away.

“One thing about the passing game: If everything is not perfectly on, it looks like you had an absolutely terrible day.

“My feeling is that the more we get frustrated, the harder we press. I don’t think you should press trying to throw the ball, but you can press when you’re trying to run the ball. You just get down in the stance, put your head down and whoever’s standing in front of you, you try to knock him out.”

Last Sunday, in their 14-10 win over the Lions, the Rams strongly resembled the Chuck Knox teams of the mid-70s--boring.

“It seemed boring to me,” Hill said. “Not the style of play but just the way the game was going. It was boring to me because I knew we weren’t doing what we were capable of doing.

“We have a lot of things. It’s not like our offense is all dull and drab. We do have a lot of trick plays, but we’re never in a position to take advantage of running those plays.”

The Rams (5-2) shouldn’t lack for inspiration at Anaheim Sunday. They will play the Falcons (5-1-1) for first place in the NFC West.

“Especially after playing Atlanta two weeks ago and understanding how physical the game is gonna be, that’s more than enough,” Hill said. “I’m not worried about our running attack this week. They really didn’t stop us last time we played ‘em. They played very tough defense, but when we finally said, ‘We’re just gonna push the ball down their throats,’ we were able to walk down the field and put it in the end zone.

“I think we match up good physically against Atlanta. What we need is some consistency in our passing game.”

Like throwing it to the tight end. The skinny one.

The Rams signed veteran wide receiver Kevin House Tuesday. He had been released by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Monday.

House, 28, is the Buccaneers’ all-time leading receiver but was reportedly unhappy with the number of long passes thrown to him this season.

“He’s a proven receiver in the NFL,” Robinson said. “We’re trying to improve our passing game.”

In seven NFL seasons, House has 286 receptions for 4,928 yards and 31 touchdowns. This season, however, he has just 11 catches for 206 yards and no touchdowns.

Robinson is hoping House can help fill the void left by receiver Henry Ellard, who is sitting out the season in a contract dispute.

The Rams did not have to make a player move to add House to the 45-man roster. They have been a player short since last Friday, when Rob Carpenter was put on injured reserve with a bad back.