RAM NOTEBOOK : Zone Defense Replacing Endangered Eagle : Football: Injuries and opponents’ adjustments have forced the team to adopt a more conservative defensive plan.

If the past month of Ram football has you pining for the days of a big pass rush and some jersey-to-jersey pass coverage, you might as well get nostalgic about driving from Irvine to Dodger Stadium in 35 minutes on the Santa Ana Freeway.

Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, Eddie Meador and six car-lengths between you and the ’67 Chevy in front of you.

OK, the daydream is over.

The 1989 Rams wage a battle of containment on defense. They play lots of linebackers and lots of zone defense. They don’t rattle quarterbacks and they give up short passes by the bucket-load.

It might frustrate people who make their decisions from the sofa every Sunday, but this bend-but-don’t-break philosophy does have its merits.

Just ask the Minnesota Vikings. Sure, they managed a 23-21 overtime victory Sunday, but they didn’t figure on winning without scoring a touchdown.

Six of the first seven times the Vikings got the ball, they drove a total of 300 yards on 59 plays, racked up 19 first downs and still failed to get into the end zone. All six drives ended in a Rich Karlis field goal.

The Rams rank last in the National Football League against the pass. But they still can stuff the run and are eighth in rushing defense.

When you get inside the 20-yard line against them, however, the holes and seams in that zone get smaller and tighter.

Keeping the other team’s point total as low as possible is, after all, the point. So Coach John Robinson was able to offer a bit of praise to his defense in the wake--and wake is a good word here--of the most disappointing loss of the Rams’ season.

“The Vikings’ plan was to go with the ball-control game, have Herschel Walker dominate the game, and he clearly didn’t,” Robinson said. “We gave ground and let them get in field-goal range, but we kept them out of the end zone.

“I thought our defense played better. (Aside from) this staggering problem we have at the end of games, our biggest problem defensively is that we’re not making the turnover play, we can’t get three-and-out at all, and we’re not doing well in the secondary.”

The Rams had no intention of sitting back in this conservative zone all season. In fact, they planned on being more aggressive than they were in 1988, when their newly installed Eagle defense (five linebackers, two linemen) was the scourge of the league.

However, a combination of injuries and opponent adjustments has sent the Rams scurrying back to a less-risky game plan.

“We’re rather vanilla,” defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur said. “None of us is real comfortable with it, but you have to put yourself in a position to win.

“If you don’t have the capacity to make the big plays by being ultra-aggressive, then you have to go the other way. You better have one helluva plus on one side of the ledger or you’re committing suicide.”

Despite a season-opening, five-game winning streak spurred by a dynamic passing game, Shurmur saw the potential for disaster with the defense.

“Teams are using a lot of maximum protection (keeping the backs in to block) when we’re in the Eagle,” Shurmur said. “Quarterbacks are throwing off three-step drops and you’re just not going to get to them.

“We decided we were better off making teams try to surgically tear us apart 15 times to score instead of giving up the big play. If they have to do it to you 15 times, there’s a good chance they’ll screw up or we’ll stop them.”

Is the Eagle an endangered species?

The Rams are playing less and less of their special defense. The Eagle was a primary reason the Rams were seventh in the NFL in points allowed (18.3 per game) and sacks (56) in 1988, but it has been spotted less often than its feathered namesake lately.

The Rams spent the summer working a number of new wrinkles into the Eagle, but they haven’t had the chance to implement them.

They started the season with the idea that Larry Kelm and Fred Strickland would be their inside linebackers, replacing veterans Carl Ekern (retired) and Jim Collins (traded). But Kelm has been out since the exhibition season with an injured foot and Strickland has missed the past three games with an ankle injury.

Strickland has been sorely missed. He plays three positions--”nosebacker” (a kind of rover) in the Eagle, inside linebacker in the 3-4 and defensive tackle in obvious passing situations.

Now, Mel Owens, who had spent his entire career at outside linebacker, and rookie Frank Stams, who played outside linebacker at Notre Dame, are at the inside spots.

So the Rams have gone from two veterans to two relatively inexperienced players (Strickland and Kelm had started just one game between them before this season) to two guys playing out of position.

“You hate to use injuries as a crutch,” Shurmur said. “In this game you just have to play without guys. But there’s no question it has hurt. It’s been frustrating because we’re actually doing less than last year. We’ve never been able to get to the variations that really bother quarterbacks.

“We’ve got (Owens and Stams) playing new positions, positions where they have to manage the defense and call the audibles.”

Strickland and Kelm are scheduled to return Sunday against the Giants, so maybe the Eagle will land again.

The secondary has been subject to some well-deserved criticism, but probably the biggest factor in the Rams’ inability to defend against the pass has been a virtually nonexistent pass rush.

Rookie Bill Hawkins, the first-round draft pick who was supposed to replace Gary Jeter as the Rams’ main inside pass rusher, has no sacks this season.

Jeter had 11 1/2 sacks in 1988, drawing attention from Kevin Greene, the No. 1 outside pass rusher. Greene has 7 1/2 sacks this season, but the Rams have managed only five during their four-game losing streak.

Ram Notes

John Robinson doesn’t like coaches who whine in public about officials, so he spent a quarter of an hour the other day talking off the record about officiating, particularly a holding call against Henry Ellard Sunday in Minnesota. The Rams had a first down at the Viking 19-yard line when quarterback Jim Everett connected with Robert Delpino for a 15-yard gain. Rarely is a receiver whistled for holding a defensive back away from a play, but Ellard was after he had shoved cornerback Carl Lee and Everett’s next pass was intercepted. Robinson declined official comment, but ESPN analyst Pete Axthelm went on the record with his opinion: “It was the worst call in the history of Western civilization.” . . . The Rams were penalized 11 times for 101 yards Sunday. The last time they had 100 or more yards in penalties was Nov. 18, 1984, in a 31-6 defeat at Green Bay.

The Rams ended a string of three games with less than 100 yards rushing Sunday, gaining 119 in 27 carries. “We have to run the football effectively,” Robinson said. “You don’t have to rack up stats running, but you have to run it effectively and we accomplished that.” . . . Robinson said he wants to get more playing time for Delpino, who is averaging 5.8 yards per carry. “We’ve got to get Bobby Delpino in the game more and we’re determined to do that,” Robinson said. “We’re using a thing we call two fullbacks. It’s a specialized thing that we’re doing for him.” . . . Cornerback Darryl Henley leads the National Football League in punt returning with a 13.4 average.