Everett Saga Has Familiar Ring to It

This is not a new story. Exactly the same thing happened before, seven years ago. The story goes like this:

Local team is in trouble. The squad has been competent, but boring. Despite having a genuine superstar on offense, the team just doesn’t quite have the talent or spirit to go all the way, and they know it.

Then a kid arrives, a rookie from a college in the Midwest. The local team gets him as a result of a trade with a team from the Southwest.

The kid is large, and somewhat slow, but has this certain instinct for the game, a knack, a feel. He’s comfortable out there, from the start.

He is friendly, outgoing, seems immune to pressure. He’s a laugher, in the middle of tough situations.

The acceptance from fans and teammates, and the impact on the spirit and performance, is immediate and dramatic.

To all the team’s problems the rookie is the answer.

That was Earvin Johnson, Lakers, 1979. Three championships later, he’s still Magic.

Now there’s a new magic in town, following exactly the same script, so far.

His name is Jim Everett, he plays quarterback for the Rams. After coming off the bench the previous week before in a Rams’ loss, Everett got his first start Sunday. He’s got a long way to go to equal Magic Johnson’s accomplishments, but Everett opened with a win, 26-13 over the New Orleans Saints.

Everett wasn’t the star of the game. But there’s no mistaking his place in the overall Rams’ scheme of things.

“We lost last week, but it was a very big game for us because the young guy came in and gave us the spark,” said Rams defensive end Gary Jeter after Sunday’s win. He was the missing ingredient of this team.

“We were playing good football, but we were sort of ho-humming along, until he came into the picture.”

Now they’re ho-ho-hoing along, a happy bunch of guys whose collective football fortunes are no longer limited by a weak-link quarterback.

The Rams finding Everett are the Bears finding McMahon, the 49ers finding Montana, the Dolphins finding Marino.

Before he started his first game, the Rams even gave the rookie a nickname, General Blade, for his leadership and his long face. The coach can hardly believe his good fortune, and doesn’t try very hard to contain his feelings.

“I think there’s a sense we’ll no longer play the game as close to the vest as we did,” said John Robinson, discussing the impact of Everett. “I think there’s a sigh of relief on the team in that respect.”

A sigh? It’s a sigh as subtle as the Santa Ana winds that whipped the flags atop Anaheim Stadium Sunday, in one of the strangest games ever played there.

The game itself was fairly pedestrian and cluttered with mistakes, but a dozen groups of pugnacious fans turned the final quarter into a battle royale, with bodies and blood flying as fights broke out like brush fires.

On the field, through it all, the Rams and their new leader just won, baby.

Everett was a frosty 7 for 20 passing, for 56 yards and 2 interceptions. When Dieter Brock turned in stats like that, lynch mobs formed. For Everett, Sunday’s stats were a definite comedown from the previous week’s Mt. Olympus performance. But he came out of it a hero.

The fans were chanting his name--”Ev-rett! Ev-rett!”--and the coach was singing his praises.

“I like Jim Everett more this week than I did last week,” said Robinson, the best friend a kid’s press agent ever had. “He got a win under his belt, which is the denominator in this league.”

Of course Robinson loves this young man. They’re both laughers. You’ll see them chuckling and smiling on the sidelines, in situations that don’t seem funny. Robinson has found a quarterback as cool as he is.

When Everett threw two interceptions early, Robinson approached him on the sideline and started to give the rookie a pep talk. Robinson suddenly realized the kid needed a pep talk like the fans needed another round of beer.

Robinson stopped himself in midsentence and walked away, sighing like a Santa Ana.

“He (Robinson) wanted to make sure I realized that two interceptions are something that happen,” Everett said of the sideline chat. “I realize that.”

Save your breath, John. This young man is the answer.

“Well, I hope that I’m the answer,” Everett said after his shower, in a statement about as cocky as you’ll hear from him. “All I want is to make the position stable, so they can rely on me.”

That’s all. Stable. Seems simple enough. Only about 85 men before Everett have failed miserably and never been heard of again.

There is real pressure. There is a potential Super Bowl team, maybe not this season but soon, and they needed a great quarterback. The fans, too, were very, uh, anxious to see a real leader taking snaps.

How has Everett managed to handle this pressure, this instant adjustment from college to pro in a tough town, and at a position that experts insist is the most difficult of all to learn?

“It all depends on how big you want to make it,” Everett said. “If you want to say, ‘Hey, this is such a big change. . . . ‘ But if you keep things in perspective.”

Sure, like Sunday was just another ballgame, with a division lead at stake, with the hearts and hopes of dozens of teammates and thousands of fans fluttering. Everett knew that. He heard the fans chanting his name.

“I think it’s exciting that at this level fans can really back a team and an individual,” Everett said. “The players hear it, and it really does help out.”

There’s the story. Rookie leader jacks up fans and teammates; bright future seen.

Sound familiar? It should, it’s an old story in this town.