PRO FOOTBALL DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE NFL

Miami running back Sammie Smith will miss at least four weeks after damaging ligaments in his left knee during the Dolphins’ 29-13 exhibition victory over Tampa Bay on Saturday, the team said.

Miami’s starting halfback underwent a magnetic resonance imaging test Monday that confirmed the damage to his medial collateral ligament. A Dolphin spokesman said the injury will not require surgery and could keep him out six weeks.

Smith, 24, a third-year running back out of Florida State, finished seventh in the AFC in rushing last year with 831 yards on 226 carries and eight rushing touchdowns. Through three exhibitions, he had 32 yards on 13 carries, but gained only six yards Saturday before being upended and injured on a screen pass in the second quarter.

Running backs Eric Dickerson and Ken Clark are injured and likely will miss the Indianapolis Colts’ exhibition game against New Orleans on Saturday.

Dickerson sustained a deep contusion to his upper back in a second-quarter hit Saturday night against Seattle and is extremely doubtful to play. Preliminary X-rays were negative, but Dickerson was scheduled for further X-rays Monday.

“The series of X-rays this afternoon are just precautionary,” Coach Ron Meyer said. “He appears to have suffered kind of a whiplash injury and a severe bruise to the upper back. He’s plenty sore.”

Clark, a second-year player who is Dickerson’s backup, suffered a sprained ankle in the Seattle game and in Meyer’s words is “very, very doubtful this week.”

Barry Sanders got more money from the Detroit Lions, and so will some of the linemen who block for the running back.

Sanders signed a one-year extension on his contract, ending a 33-day absence from camp that he will cost him $49,500 in fines.

Sanders received a $2.1-million signing bonus, payable over the next three seasons. He will be paid $600,000 for this season and receive $200,000 annual raises for the next two seasons, bringing his pay to $1 million by 1993.

Sanders signed a five-year contract in 1989 worth $5.9 million. The extension could bring Sanders’ six-year contract to $10.1 million.

The contract also calls for the Lions to pay bonuses to certain linemen if Sanders’ statistics pass certain levels.

Surgery to repair Percy Snow’s broken right ankle was successful, but the Kansas City Chiefs are without an experienced linebacker to take his starting inside position.

Snow, the Chiefs’ top draft pick last year, fractured his ankle Sunday night in a motor-scooter accident.

“The surgery procedure went well,” Coach Marty Schottenheimer said. “You don’t like to see things like that happen, but accidents happen.”

Pro Bowl nose tackle Erik Howard ended a nearly monthlong holdout and practiced with the New York Giants after failing to get the team to renegotiate his contract.

The 27-day holdout has the potential of costing Howard $40,500 in fines, based on the NFL maximum of $1,500 for each day a signed player misses camp.

“I can always use the writeoff,” said Howard, who did not know how much he would be fined.

Coach Ray Handley would not disclose the fine.

Whatever, Howard can afford it. The six-year veteran, who kept his whereabouts a secret during his holdout, is in the final year of a two-year contract that will earn him $550,000 this season.

But a recent three-year contract extension that the Detroit Lions gave Jerry Ball, the other Pro Bowl nose tackle, made that salary seem too small to Howard.

Ball who was to make $375,000 this year, got a reported $925,000 signing bonus on top of his salary for this season. He also will be paid $1 million plus incentives in each of the final two years of the deal.

New York Jet Coach Bruce Coslet is continuing to keep open his options open about his starting quarterback. But rookie Browning Nagle is no longer one of those options, despite a seven-of-eight passing performance in a loss to Kansas City on Saturday.

“Browning will not be the starter this year,” Coslet said Monday. “He’s just not ready to start.”

The other two Jet quarterbacks are Ken O’Brien and Troy Taylor.