Rams Still Looking for Any Good News : Pro football: The main objective in tonight’s final exhibition against the Chargers is to avoid injuries, but they also want a victory.

Defensive tackle D’Marco Farr figures tonight’s exhibition game between his 0-3 Rams and the 0-4 San Diego Chargers will have all the action and suspense of one of those pro wrestling matches he loves to watch.

“It’s going to be like one of those tag-team matches,” said Farr, a rookie free agent from Washington.

“You never know, somebody could come out of the dressing room and pound the guys on the head with a megaphone and decide it that way.”

Perhaps that might be a fitting end to the Rams’ exhibition season tonight at Jack Murphy Stadium. And while it’s not exactly part of Coach Chuck Knox’s game plan, the Rams are looking for all the help they can find in trying to win their first exhibition game since 1992.

The Rams will try to end their eight-game exhibition losing streak with an offensive line that’s struggling to protect its quarterback, a beat-up defensive line and a secondary that’s being picked apart by quarterbacks.

But what the Rams don’t want is a repeat of last week’s injuries in a 29-20 loss to the Raiders.

In a span of about 60 seconds late in the second quarter, quarterback Chris Miller was headed to the locker room with a cut on his chin after being hit, and Pro Bowl defensive tackle Sean Gilbert was clutching his sprained left ankle.

Defensive end Gerald Robinson (left ankle) and defensive tackle Jimmie Jones (sore wrist) were already getting X-rays.

Miller and Jones are starting tonight, but Farr is expected to replace Gilbert, and rookie Brad Ottis, a second-round draft pick, is slated to start in place of Robinson.

Knox expects to hold out some of his starters but did not indicate which ones. He said he plans to give plenty of playing time to backups such as offensive linemen Chuck Belin and Keith Loneker and running backs James Bostic and Howard Griffith. Seven players must be cut by Sunday, when rosters are to be trimmed to 53 players for the Sept. 4 regular-season opener against Arizona.

“There’s a sense of urgency there right now,” Miller said. “We need to be sharp, we need to be crisp and we need to be ready for the season-opener.

“We just need to clean things up a little bit. We’re game-planning a little more for the Chargers, and we didn’t do that a lot for the Raiders.”

With home attendance dwindling and the players wondering if the team is moving to Baltimore or St. Louis, can the Rams find a winning combination?

Tailback Jerome Bettis thinks so.

“It’s 36 left, 36 right, 36 left,” Bettis said, calling out his jersey number.

“We just need to get in sync, like a lock. Just click, then we’ll open. But right now, we’re still turning. But once we get that number, we’ll open right up.”

Bettis, who gained 1,429 yards as a rookie last season, is still waiting for those holes to open. Playing only two quarters in exhibition losses to New England and the Raiders, he has gained only 57 yards in 20 carries, a 2.9-yard average.

“The big picture right now, obviously, is Arizona,” Bettis said. “The San Diego game will give us another good look at the core, to see how we’ll mesh in a game situation.

“We’re just not consistent on offense. We know exactly what the offensive line, running backs, quarterbacks and receivers are going to give us now. And the coaches know how to work with that.”

After some ineffective experimentation in the first two games, the Rams appear to be set with a starting offensive line of tackles Jackie Slater and Clarence Jones, guards Leo Goeas and Bill Schultz, and center Bern Brostek.

The first-string defense has given up 34 points playing only half of the past two games, and the Raiders had 206 yards of offense by halftime last week.

And with the first-string defensive line producing only one sack in the past two games, teams have consistently passed on the Rams’ starting cornerbacks, Todd Lyght and Steve Israel.

Lyght got beat for a touchdown against Green Bay and for two against New England, and he struggled covering the Raiders’ Daryl Hobbs.

Israel, who’s battling a sore thigh muscle, was beaten for a 25-yard touchdown catch by Raider tight end Andrew Glover and was called for pass interference and facemask penalties that set up another score.

But the Rams did get some good news about their secondary Tuesday, when a federal judge granted cornerback Darryl Henley permission to travel with the team this season.

Henley, under indictment on drug charges, sought a change in his bail restrictions that allowed him to play in road games. He is expected to sit out tonight’s game with a hamstring pull he suffered in practice.

So with an injury-plagued defense and the possibility of another winless exhibition season, can the Rams expect to do any better than last year’s 5-11 record?

“There’s not a cloud hanging over us right now because this is only the exhibition season,” Bettis said. “But there will be a cloud hanging over us if we’re 0-5 in the regular season.

“We can’t get down just because we haven’t won a preseason game. That won’t determine whether we’re a good football team or not.”