RAM NOTEBOOK : Zendejas Closing In on Field Goal Record

ANAHEIM —  While everything but the brick buildings at Rams Park crumbled around him, Tony Zendejas kept on kicking. The Rams took a licking, but Zendejas kept ticking.

The Rams lost 10 in a row to bow out of 1991, but Zendejas established an NFL record by making every field goal he attempted in a season. He was four for four in the second game of the year and three for three in the last, finishing with 17 consecutive field goals.

“Actually, it’s more difficult kicking when your team is not doing that well because every field goal means that much more,” he said. “It puts a little extra pressure on you when you feel like you have to make everything they send you out for.

“If your team is doing well and scoring a lot, you can afford to miss one here and there. You can recover from it.”

The Rams never came up for air after a 3-3 start last year. Sunday in Buffalo, they embark on a new reach for respectability and Zendejas might find a another spot in the record book. He has made 23 field goals in a row--dating back to Sept. 30, 1990, when he was with Houston--one short of the league record set by Chicago’s Kevin Butler in 1988-89.

“The record would just mean that I’m a consistent kicker and I’m still consistent now,” he said. “Maybe later on, after my playing days are over, it would be something I would cherish a lot more than if I get it Sunday.

“How I’m perceiving this game is that if I make some field goals and help the team win, that’s what’s important. The record stuff is secondary.”

Zendejas, who enters the season ranked fifth on the all-time field goal list with a percentage of .744, says the best part of the streak has been the impact on his confidence.

“Every time you step on the field, you think you’re going to make your kick and if you do or if you don’t, it’s still good to have that confidence,” he said. “And the feeling has carried over. I still feel I’m going to make every kick.”

He hasn’t had many chances during the preseason. He made four in a row, however, before missing the last two exhibition games because of a slight groin pull. Zendejas, a seven-year veteran who came to the Rams via Plan B in 1991, says the minor injury is nothing more than a memory now.

“It feels fine. I’ve been kicking all week and haven’t even thought about it,” he said, smiling. “If you’ve played as long as I have, sometimes the rest is better than kicking every day.

“I think I’m at my mental peak now. I’m very focused. I feel good, and missing a couple of games didn’t do anything to disrupt my rhythm.”

He’ll be watching you: Even a kicker--whose job at most NFL practices is to find a spot in the shade and watch--has felt the eyes of Coach Chuck Knox bearing into him during training camp.

“He is so attentive to detail, in every phase of the game,” Zendejas said. “When you think he’s not there, he is there, watching every move that everyone makes.

“Everybody is always on their toes, concentrating on what they’re supposed to do. In the long run, it will pay off. I think we’ll be more successful because of it.”

No vibrations: Buffalo Coach Marv Levy says he doesn’t have any premonitions about the Bills’ chances of making a third consecutive Super Bowl appearance.

“The last time I had a gut feeling was at Santa Anita and it didn’t work out very well,” he said. “I try to stay away from that. This team works well in practice, they have excellent work ethic and we have very good internal leadership from our players. So, from that standpoint, I feel good.”

Not surprisingly, Levy seems less than upset that a growing number of NFL prognosticators are predicting the decline of the Buffalo dynasty.

“I really don’t have any feelings about that,” he said. “I’m so involved in our game preparation. What’s being said doesn’t mean much. It’s what you do that counts.

“It doesn’t make any difference to me what people say before the game. It’s what the scoreboard says after that game that I want to direct my attention to.”

OK, so the disappointment of back-to-back Super Bowl losses probably has absolutely no bearing on the state of the 1992 Bills, right?

“Last year doesn’t make any difference,” Levy said. “About the only thing I said was, ‘Everybody’s going to say it’s very difficult to go back to the Super Bowl, and they’re right, it is. But if you weren’t there last year, it’s just as tough to get there.’

“We’re in the same boat as every team in the league relative to that.”

Rookie defensive tackle Sean Gilbert isn’t as far behind his teammates as he might have been going into the season opener because the veterans are also learning a new defense.

“It’s been a little uneasy for everyone here because it’s a new scheme, a new system,” Gilbert said. “But we’re all equal only in the aspect that it’s new to everyone. I’m in there with the veterans and they can only help me.

“Everything is starting to come around, though, and I’m starting to feel more relaxed.”

And Gilbert say he plans to stay that way before and during Sunday’s opener in Buffalo when he makes his regular-season debut.

“It’s just time to play, that’s all,” he said. “If I study right, I’ll be OK. I’ll just study my film and try to eliminate a lot of the young errors that I’m capable of making.

“Each player is different, but I just go into a game saying I’m going to relax and play.”