THIS WEEK’S RAIDER/RAM OPPONENTS : RAMS VS. CLEVELAND : Golic a Blue-Collar Player With Red-Letter Results

With that bothersome players’ strike over, Cleveland’s favorite self-acclaimed Neanderthal, Bob Golic, is back to the mud and misery that is nose tackle.

This is a position, Golic says, that requires abnormal traits, such as bulk and a high threshold of pain. A police record is not necessarily helpful but it is no deterrent, either.

Nose tackles often leave the field blood-stained and limping. It isn’t an elegant job. If all goes well, nose tackles, at least the ones who play for the Browns, are supposed to occupy the center and, preferably, a guard or two. That clogs up the middle, frees linebackers to make tackles and beats the bejabbers out of Golic.

And, of course, he loves it. Two Pro Bowl appearances prove that much.

Golic has become the unofficial spokesman of nose tackles everywhere, the blue-collar worker’s friend. The way Golic figures it, the evolutionary scale goes something like this: man, ape, nose tackle. A public relations problem, to be sure.

Now, as the Browns ready themselves for Monday night’s game against the Rams at ancient Cleveland Stadium, Golic, who turns 30 that night, resumes the shtick: Playing nose tackle is the same as being a fire hydrant at a dog show.

Nose tackles don’t get any respect. A favorite Golic line: “I asked (the coaches) about tackles, and they said, ‘You don’t have to make tackles, just let people hit you.’ ”

Golic wasn’t supposed to be a nose tackle. Who wants to spend a career crouching and clogging? Had everything gone as planned, Golic would be a linebacker. That’s what the New England Patriots had in mind when they selected him in the second round of the 1979 draft.

Three seasons later, Golic was waived. So much for that linebacking career. The Browns claimed him, though, moved him to nose tackle, then watched as Golic--all 242 pounds of him at the time--earned a permanent position.

Last year, Golic found himself on his second consecutive Pro Bowl team. He said he could get used to that sort of thing--the occasional fame and the perks that come with it--if only he could last a little longer.

“I came into the league saying I was going to play 20 years,” Golic said during a conference call earlier in the week. “About a week into training camp, somebody just wasted me, so I cut that figure in half. I’m looking for three or four more years. After that, I’ll go over and play offensive line.”

Position?

“Anywhere they’ll have me,” he said. “I mean, if it came to the point in my career that I wasn’t getting the playing time at nose tackle, I would consider going over there and trying offensive line. I’ve had experience in, well, high school, so obviously I’m a professional offensive lineman.”

That is Golic’s way. So what if you anger the Ram offensive line with off-the-wall remarks. What more can they do to him? He already plays the worst position in the game.

About the only thing that annoys Golic is the Browns’ tendency to replace him on obvious passing downs. To the sideline he goes, angry, perplexed.

“The coaches were going on the assumption that if you play everybody, everybody stays fresh, everybody plays hard,” he said. “But I play my best games when I’m beat up, I’m tired, I’m worn out. When the second and third wind kicks in, that’s when I start playing my best football.

“Anytime I come off the football field for any reason during the course of the game, Tom Pratt, the defensive line coach, knows it’s probably best to avoid me. Even at this point in my career, I still have a tendency to throw a few barbs his way.”

Really, though, Golic isn’t that mad. After all, he is back with his beloved Brownies, doing what he does best, which is educate America on the dangers of playing nose tackle. Public service, and all that.

During the 24-day players’ strike, the Browns assembled at a local field and did what they could. Quarterbacks threw. Receivers caught. Linemen, uh, watched.

“The offensive linemen and defensive linemen would stand there and look at each other and then we would decide to go have lunch,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot you can do. You can walk through your technique. I lined up against a couple of sleds, hitting some of the tackling dummies. I didn’t lose one of those confrontations, so I felt I was pretty much staying in pretty good shape.”

So the rested, healed Golic returns. Awaiting him are double- and triple-team blocks, dirt baths, assorted carnage. He can hardly contain himself.

“Hey, a lot of people say they’re going to retire in their prime,” Golic said. “I’m the kind of guy that they’re going to have to drag off the field, scraping and clawing.”

Nose tackles: the proud, the few.

Ram Notes

Eric Dickerson, suffering from a knot in his thigh, was excused from Friday’s practice. “He’s had it, even before the strike,” Coach John Robinson said of the injury. Also, it neatly improves Charles White’s chances of being the starting tailback Monday night, though Robinson won’t officially announce a starter until after today’s practice. Dickerson had his thigh examined by Dr. Clarence Shields. . . . Although the football spotlight has suddenly turned on White, and he returns to play against his former team Monday night, he’s still refusing all interview requests. White was the Browns’ No. 1 draft choice in 1980.