Delpino Goes Extra Length to Prove Value : Rams: The newest tailback sparks his team to victory over Giants with fourth-down touchdown.

To the head linesman, who was staring straight down the goal line, it must have looked like a scene from a cartoon. Out of the mass piled a foot from the end zone came a bare arm extending a football over the goal line like some sort of mechanical device Wiley Coyote might have purchased from Acme Hardware Co.

Buried under New York linebackers Steve DeOssie and Lawrence Taylor, Ram tailback Robert Delpino scored a touchdown the hard way. The Giant defense had left no hole to squeeze his body through, but there was a crack of daylight big enough for a football.

“It was just another extra effort by Bobby Delpino,” Ram quarterback Jim Everett said, shaking his head in amazement. “He keeps playing to the utmost of his talent . . . and beyond.”

The Giant defense already had begun to celebrate, until they noticed that Everett wasn’t the only one signaling a touchdown.

It was late in the second quarter, with the score tied, 3-3, and the Rams faced a fourth down and inches. The decision was made to go for the touchdown, and Delpino followed fullback Mosi Tatupu’s block into the left side of the Giant line.

Delpino was stopped for no gain. His arm scored the touchdown.

The play was reviewed, but it was impossible to tell by the replays whether Delpino’s knee had touched the ground before he placed the football in the end zone, so the touchdown stood and the Rams were en route to a 19-13 victory over the defending Super Bowl champions.

The Giants not only argued that Delpino had been stopped before he pushed the ball past the goal line, but they also said they thought the play had been whistled dead before “The Reach.”

“We don’t know anything about any whistles being blown,” referee Johnny Grier said later. “No one said anything about any whistles being blown on the field. This is the first we’ve heard of it.”

While the 76,541 in Giants Stadium waited and hoped for a reversal of fortune, only Delpino was confident he had scored.

“Coach (John) Robinson came up and asked me while they were reviewing it, and I said, ‘Yeah, no doubt, I scored. My body wasn’t in, but the ball was over before my legs were on the ground. No doubt about it,’ ” Delpino said. “When it comes down to you as the ballcarrier on fourth and inches, everybody would say, ‘Oh, he didn’t make it.’ I needed to get that ball across the line some way. Any way. We needed that boost.”

Delpino had already given his team a shove, going 36 yards up the middle on a draw play that set up the short-yardage situation near the New York end zone. He finished with 116 yards in 27 carries and one reception for nine yards.

A horde of New York reporters wanted to know how it felt to be the first ballcarrier to surpass the 100-yard mark against the Giants since Phoenix’s Johnny Johnson did it last October.

Delpino wasn’t sure what to say, except that it felt “good.” After all, in only a few months, he has gone from forgotten fullback to touted tailback.

After a disappointing 1990 season, during which he carried only 13 times and caught only 15 passes, Delpino showed up in training camp in the best shape of his life.

“He came into camp this summer and everybody said, ‘Whoa,’ ” Robinson said. “He just blew us over. He looked phenomenal.

“A player like Bobby, who’s so complete, they’re very special.”

Injuries to Cleveland Gary and Marcus Dupree gave Delpino a chance to play at tailback, and he has made the most of it. There were questions, but Delpino has the answers.

Could he survive the beating a tailback must take?

He carried 15 times for 81 yards in the Ram opener and got out of bed the next day all by himself.

Can he carry 20 or more times a game?

Ask the Giants.

“I’m adapting to the role as runner,” said Delpino, who had been used primarily as a receiver in his first three seasons with the Rams. “Any time you carry the ball that many times, you’ll get worn out a little bit.

“I feel good, though. I feel I can be the workhorse for this team.”

That might not be in Delpino’s future, however. Robinson hinted Sunday that Delpino and Gary, who had five rushes for 25 yards against the Giants, would begin to share the tailback duties.

“I’ve got to get Cleveland going again,” Robinson said. “He’s a real football player.”

Don’t look for Delpino to issue a demand, however. “Any time I can contribute more than I have been in the past, I’m happy,” he said.

And he was smiling a lot Sunday.