Veteran Center Smith Is Cut by Rams : Pro football: He leaves team after 14 years, including six Pro Bowl berths. Bush, who played for Knox in Seattle, will be reserve.

The Rams, who could not give him a roster spot, knew they at least owed Doug Smith a quick decision and the dignity of a quiet goodby.

After 14 years, including six Pro Bowl berths, Smith, 35, got the news of his release from Coach Chuck Knox privately Monday afternoon, cleaned out his Rams Park locker and headed home.

Tuesday, the Rams’ longtime center was officially released, along with 10 rookies and free agents, as the Rams got down to the 60-player roster limit. Smith made the team in 1978, the year after Knox left for the Buffalo Bills, and now Smith leaves the year Knox returns.

Smith, on a conference call from his home in Mission Viejo, said he wasn’t surprised by the move and thanked the Rams for not delaying his fate until the last cut--allowing him an extra week to try to hook on with another team.

From the moment the Rams signed Blair Bush, also a 35-year-old center, during the Plan B period, it was clear that Smith’s days were numbered.

“A lot of people might have just retired after the 14th season, saying, ‘Hey, it’s been a great career,’ ” Smith said Tuesday.

“But I didn’t want to leave anything open-ended. I didn’t want to think that there were some might-be’s, that I could have been playing on a Super Bowl team with the Rams. If I didn’t give it a shot, I didn’t want to say, ‘Well, I could have been there.’

“I know it comes down to some numbers things at times, and I got caught in that. So I’m going to press on from there.”

Knox, for his part, said he wanted to make sure the Rams were not standing in the way of Smith’s chance to play for another NFL team.

“Doug Smith has been a great player for the Rams, and this came down to a situation where we felt if we wanted to make a change, we’d make it now with the hopes that if he wants to continue to play, maybe somebody else might be interested in him,” Knox said Tuesday.

“(It was) just a question where we felt the backup center had to be the long-snapper on the punt team and on the field goal team.”

Bush, born on the same day as Smith, was a long snapper for Knox from 1983 through 1988, when both were with the Seattle Seahawks. He will back up Bern Brostek.

“(Knox) could have just said it’s over, it’s done, and see you,” Smith said. “But they have a class group and he’s a class individual.”

From 1980 until losing his starting spot last season, Smith sat out only three games and started 76 games consecutively from 1986-90.

“We gave it some good shots, went to the Super Bowl (after the 1979 season), and the Pro Bowls have just all been fantastic honors,” Smith said. “All of those things kind of rush through your mind as I was cleaning out my locker.

“Nonetheless, I played 10 years past the odds, and I had a lot of success, for which I’m very thankful.”

Smith said the next step is to sit back and see who might be interested in him. Already, he said, a few teams have put out feelers.

“The next 24 hours are pretty exciting for a 35-year-old guy playing football,” Smith said. “I’m looking forward to hearing.”

But if this is the end of his NFL career, Smith said he could understand it and get on with his life. He suggested he might stay involved with football as a coach.

“Contrary to the amount of time we put into football, there are things that are a lot more important than the game,” Smith said. “It’s been a great career for me.

” . . . I don’t think it’s ever easy when you have to give up something you love doing. But I still want to be involved in it.”

For his teammates, especially tackle Jackie Slater, who has been with Smith for all 14 years, it was a sad departure.

“It was strange to see the locker cleaned out,” Slater said. “It was strange to be there and not see him walking around. He’s one of the few guys that I could always depend on to not look at me and say, ‘If this old guy can make it to practice, I know I can.’

“He’s a good friend of mine, a good friend of most of the people that got to know him, one of the spiritual leaders of our football team, as far as being a Christian, for the last several years that he’s been here.

“For those of us who are left when this thing is all said and done at the end of the season, those of us that are left here, we’re going to really miss him.”

Smith, at 6 feet 3 and 272 pounds, never had the dominating physique of so many other linemen, never had the ferocious temperament. But, Slater said, he got the job accomplished.

“Doug was the ultimate competitor,” Slater said. “I saw a guy that came out every day and worked his butt off. I saw a guy who was smart, he made sure everybody who was working with him was where he was supposed to be whenever he was supposed to be there. And he communicated real well.

“I think Doug right now is going to go and give a good, long thought, and he’s going to thank the good Lord above that he was blessed to play as long as he did.

“And he’s going to go on and be an all-pro in whatever else he does in life.”