Pisa Tinoisamoa tried playing with a broken left hand and dislocated left elbow last season, doing whatever he could to help the St. Louis Rams.

This year, the outside linebacker has the luxury of waiting until an ankle injury that sidelined him last week has a chance to heal. He vows not to take shortcuts to get back into the lineup this week at Tampa Bay and has received only limited work this week in practice.

Coach Scott Linehan said Tinoisamoa's status, whether he starts or even plays, likely would be a game-day decision.

"I'm trying to be smart about it this year, as opposed to last year," said Tinoisamoa, a University of Hawai'i alum. "I was just like 'Oh, I've got to go, I've got to go,' and I never really got healthy, and then it started going downhill.

"I just kept compounding those injuries."

Tinoisamoa knows it's better to be prudent. Predictably, he wasn't very effective playing with one arm in 2006 before finishing the season on injured reserve.

"If it was up to me, and they know that, I'd play regardless of if I was 60 or 70 percent," Tinoisamoa said. "But they also know I play best when I'm at 100 percent, and they didn't get very much production out of me playing with one arm."

His capsule assessment: "It was bad."

The Rams also have a nice alternative in Chris Draft, an offseason free-agent pickup who started last week in place of Tinoisamoa on the outside. Draft has several years of starting experience and Linehan said Draft was "solid like always" against the 49ers.

BILLS

EVERETT TO START REHAB, WALKING AGAIN IN WEEKS

Kevin Everett will be transferred this morning to a Houston hospital to begin the next phase of his rehabilitation, less than two weeks after the Buffalo Bills tight end sustained a life-threatening spinal cord injury.

And doctors said yesterday they believe he will be walking within weeks — perhaps sooner.

"Soon ... they're going to stand him up," Dr. Barth Green told The Associated Press, shortly after discussing Everett's condition with Bills orthopedic surgeon Dr. Andrew Cappuccino. "They're very confident he'll be walking very soon ... in the next days or weeks, not months."

Eric Armstead, a partner of Everett's agent Brian Overstreet, said Everett was leaving Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital in Buffalo, N.Y., and will be going to Houston's Memorial Hermann Hospital.

ELSEWHERE

Colts: Indianapolis tight end Dallas Clark (neck), right tackle Ryan Diem (neck) and outside linebacker Rob Morris (abdominal strain) — all starters — missed their second straight practice yesterday, and coach Tony Dungy has not said whether they will play Sunday at Houston.

49ers: San Francisco linebacker Manny Lawson, second on the team with 14 tackles, will miss the rest of the season after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during Wednesday's practice.

Vikings: Quarterback Tarvaris Jackson missed his second straight day of practice yesterday, and it's appearing more likely that veteran Kelly Holcomb will start for Minnesota against the Kansas City Chiefs.