Rams Dig Deep for Defensive Line Help : Pro football: Brian Smith, a rookie linebacker who was on the injured reserve list for seasoning, will start at right end against the Jets Sunday.

The Rams are so desperate on the defensive line, they’re not above reaching into cold storage for help.

Brian Smith, the team’s second-round choice from Auburn, was a nice little project on the back-burner, a lanky linebacker with a considerable future and wing span. The Rams drafted him last April, potted him, watered him, and hoped he’d someday grow into a National Football League player.

Next Sunday wasn’t what the team had in mind, but here comes Brian Smith, roots and all.

Injuries to three defensive ends have forced the Rams to alter their long-term forecast, so much so that Smith will start at right defensive end against the New York Jets in the team’s 3-4 alignment. He’s the fourth starter at the position this season, following Shawn Miller (moved to left end after Doug Reed’s ankle sprain), Mike Piel (dislocated elbow) and Bill Hawkins (partially torn knee ligament).

Wasn’t Smith a linebacker? That was last month. Desperate times warrant desperate measures.

“Sometimes they say that’s the best way to learn, if they just throw you right into the fire,” Smith said.

Smith played some defensive line in college, but it’s a long way from Auburn to the NFL, especially when you’re playing out of position.

Smith spent the first 13 weeks on injured reserve with a wrist injury, a polite way of letting everyone know that he needed more seasoning.

He checked into training camp at 6-feet-6 and 240 pounds, and the Rams pointed him to the cafeteria. The team says it was thinking of Smith as a defensive end all along, only they never got around to telling him.

“Actually, there was no indication,” he said. “I was just going along during my time out, and Coach (John) Robinson kept telling me: ‘Just get bigger, stronger and faster.’ And that’s what I was doing.”

Smith now weighs 265 pounds, a 25-pound increase since the summer. At least now he looks the part. But can he play the part?

“For me, it’s just getting out there and playing for a change,” he said. “I’ve got a lot to learn, and I’m working overtime to learn everything.”

Meanwhile, the Rams are in a playoff chase, which normally isn’t the best time to break new players into the lineup.

But they’re out of options. Wednesday, the Rams worked out Sean Smith, an unemployed defensive tackle and former fourth-round choice of the Chicago Bears. All measures now are stop-gap.

Robinson said the team might activate linebacker Mark Messner off the developmental squad and play him at nose-backer in the Eagle defense or on the line as a stunting tackle.

Messner is one of those “tweeners”--players who don’t fit in well at linebacker or lineman when you feed his numbers (6-feet-2, 255 pounds) into the computer.

“But he drives us crazy on the field,” Robinson said, complimenting Messner’s instinctive abilities. “But you’ve got to move him. Moving, he’s dangerous.”

As for Smith, the future is now. The Rams have been impressed with his growth during his injured reserve hibernation. By growth here, they mean weight.

“He’s gotten huge compared to what he was,” defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur said. “He was a skinny kid when he got here.”

Now he’s an NFL starter, if only a few years ahead of schedule.

Someone wondered Wednesday whether John Taylor’s touchdown receptions of 95 and 92 yards against the Rams last Monday night were the result of poor defense or great individual effort by the San Francisco receiver.

Robinson explained: “If I’m running over to the refrigerator to get the last Coke and you try to tackle me, and you miss, and I get the Coke, is that bad tackling or did I make a great run for the Coke? I don’t know. From our standpoint, we didn’t tackle very good. If I was Taylor’s agent, I’d say it was a brilliant run.”

Ram Notes

The team won’t make a roster move on Bill Hawkins until Friday, when they can better determine how long he’ll be out with the knee injury suffered in Monday night’s loss. “No one quite knows whether his injury is a two-week injury or a two-month injury,” Coach John Robinson said. If Hawkins could be available by the second round of the playoffs, assuming the Rams make it that far, the Rams would keep him on the roster, Robinson said. If not, Hawkins will go on injured reserve. . . . Some final words on Robinson’s fake field goal call against San Francisco: “It’s the first great call I’ve ever made that failed,” Robinson said. . . . This week’s opponent, the New York Jets, are in serious trouble on and off the field. Neither of the team’s top quarterbacks, Ken O’Brien or Pat Ryan, practiced Wednesday. O’Brien, the starter, has a sore elbow and won’t throw this week, Coach Joe Walton said. Ryan, the backup, suffered a concussion in Sunday’s loss to Pittsburgh. “(Tony) Eason’s the only healthy quarterback we’ve got,” Walton said. . . . Off the field, Walton’s job seems in serious jeopardy now that the team has publicly announced it is actively trying to hire New England Patriots’ General Manager Dick Steinberg to run the Jets’ front office. Walton said Wednesday he wasn’t bothered by the speculation. “To the contrary,” he said. “I’m not concerning myself at all about it.”