PRO FOOTBALL DAILY REPORT : RAMS : New Experience Unpleasant for Zendejas

For the first time since 1990, Tony Zendejas has had to spend a week trying to forget a bad game.

Zendejas had made 23 consecutive field goals--one short of an NFL record--and gone his whole 17-game Ram career without a miss until going 0 for 3 last week.

“I’m just chalking it up to a bad game and let it be, and go on from there,” Zendejas said. “It’s been a while since I’d missed and maybe I took it a little hard and lost a little bit of my composure, which I never do. And that had something to do with it.”

Zendejas was noticeably shaken in the days after Sunday’s 14-0 victory over the New England Patriots.

“I’m not immune from mistakes,” Zendejas said. “It happened this game. I guess maybe it caught up to me.

“I’ve had some types of these things in my career, I’ve had a bad game, missed one, missed an extra point. I think I had a couple times where I missed two field goals. But nothing like this.”

Coach Chuck Knox made a point of speaking with Zendejas early this week. “He said, ‘One game, streak’s over, and it’s time to start a new one,’ ” Zendejas said.

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Reserve defensive tackle David Rocker, who played the second half last Sunday when Sean Gilbert had to leave because of a sore left ankle, injured his knee in Thursday’s practice, which means the Rams will head into Sunday’s game against the Miami Dolphins with a shortage at that position.

“It looks like David Rocker’s definitely going to be out of the game,” Knox said Friday.

Although Gilbert is expected to start on the right side, his ankle is still a question mark, and without Rocker, the team doesn’t have a pure tackle backup. Knox on Friday said the Rams might try to find a defensive tackle off the waiver wire over the weekend.

“It’s kind of a rough spot,” Knox said. “We’re going to take a look. I don’t know if we can get anybody to fill in there. (Reserve defensive end Mike) Piel could play there.”