Millen Hopes to Revive QB Controversy

The quarterback for the Rams is tall--6 feet 5 inches--and throws hard enough to leave marks on your hands.

He’s young, born in 1963, is entering his second season, weighs about 216 pounds, was a star in college, wears his hair cropped short, has thin legs and is an eligible bachelor.

So who is it, Jim Everett or Hugh Millen?

The similarities are striking enough.

Now, for some striking differences. Everett is the Ram quarterback for the next decade or so, a player who might throw a touchdown pass for the Rams in the 21st Century. Deservingly, Everett gets the press, the practice snaps, the coach’s attention, the big money, the experience.

If Millen stays on the active roster this season, he’ll learn all about the scout team.

He was not so much as a thought in the coach’s mind last season after breaking an ankle 10 days into training camp. That misadventure cost Millen his rookie season.

“I was just a guy on crutches who got to play in golf tournaments in the winter,” Millen said, pretty much summing up his Ram career to this point.

From his spot on the injured-reserve list, Millen, the team’s third-round draft choice from Washington in 1986, watched the Rams swing the trade with the Houston Oilers for Everett last September.

With his ankle set in plaster, there was little Millen could say or prove.

“I’d be lying to say that it wasn’t frustrating,” he said of the trade. “I couldn’t give you a statement that said that it wasn’t discouraging. I felt kind of helpless.”

And he was. Until now. Millen’s ankle has healed and he is showing that there was never anything wrong with his arm.

In two brief appearances in summer exhibition games, Millen has completed 12 of 15 passes for 152 yards.

More important, those passes meant something, even though Millen was operating with a cast of fourth-quarter reserves, many of whom will soon be referring to newspaper classified-ad sections.

Still, trailing, 21-20, with 2 minutes 30 seconds left against the San Diego Chargers Sunday night, it was Millen who drove the Rams 67 yards in 14 plays, setting up Mike Lansford’s winning field goal with four seconds remaining. Millen completed 5 of 8 passes on the drive for 65 yards, including a 21-yarder to Loren Richey on fourth down to the Charger 19-yard line.

Millen was the first to add perspective.

“I haven’t really been out there in the thick of things,” he said. “There’s a big difference being out there in August, mopping up in the fourth quarter, to playing in December against the 49ers, against their nickel defense with the division title on the line. In that sense, I guess I am still a baby.”

And in that sense, Everett, who has already made some serious eye contact with 49er safety Ronnie Lott in a game near Christmas, is in a different league.

So this is not Waterfield vs. Van Brocklin or Gabriel vs. Munson.

But the fact remains that sometime down the road, the Rams are going to have two good quarterbacks who cast their first vote in the same year.

So what then?

Millen said it might make for a good story some year, but not this year.

“It’s very apparent from the depth chart that Jim’s No. 1, Steve (Dils) is No. 2,” said Millen, who’s No. 3. “There’s never been any discussion.”

But Millen’s showing has left some question as to whether the Rams will keep three quarterbacks this season.

Will Millen make the final 45-man roster?

“If he doesn’t get hurt,” Coach John Robinson said, almost suggesting that another trip to the injured-reserve list is a possibility.

And so, someday, is a trade.

There was a time in the NFL when young quarterbacks were expected to chart passes and run errands for as many as five seasons before playing a down.

But it seems the great quarterback crop of 1983, in particular the arrival of Miami’s Dan Marino, has changed the way young quarterbacks think these days.

“I think quarterbacks have this image that they can go in and rip it up right away the way Marino did,” Millen said. “The Marino thing was the exception. If I separate my emotions and think rationally, I’d have to concede that it’s better for me to be prepared.”

Until this summer, Millen hadn’t thrown a pass that counted since November 1985 at Washington, where he missed the last two games of his senior season because of an injury.

Meanwhile, at Purdue, Everett, everyone’s future first-round draft choice, was ripping it up in the Boilermakers’ pro-style offense.

By contrast, the Rams drafted Millen over the mild objections of their own quarterback coach, Dick Coury.

“I wasn’t as high on him when we drafted him as I am now,” Coury said. “Hugh couldn’t have played a whole lot better than he’s played in these last two games. He has a real strong arm, but he used to throw the ball hard all the time, like John Elway. He’s learned to take something off the ball.”

Coury said the physical comparisons between Everett and Millen are obvious.

“They’re both very similar,” he said. “But I don’t know how you can compare the two. Jim is a franchise-type player. Hugh, he needs to compete. He just has to play.”

But Millen’s playing days will soon end with the start of the regular season. For now, he can live with it.

“But there comes a point when you’re sitting on the shelf that you plane out as a quarterback,” Millen said. “It’s not to say that there aren’t some days that I don’t go home and kick the dog. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to compete. But I don’t want it to sound like I’m trying to start anything. I don’t want to start making crazy assertions.”

He’s saving those for the great Everett-Millen Ram quarterback controversy of 1990.

Ram Notes

LeRoy Irvin will make his 1987 debut at cornerback Saturday night against the Denver Broncos. Irvin has been bothered all training camp by, in order of severity, his contract, an injured hamstring and a sore back. . . . Irv Pankey, the offensive tackle with the new two-year contract, practiced Thursday and said he will play some Saturday night. “But I know I can’t go out and play a half without maybe getting somebody hurt,” Pankey said. Of his holdout, Pankey added, “I ran and lifted and tried to keep in shape, but I couldn’t sit around the house and be a couch potato.” . . . Tailback Charles White raced past reporters without comment for the second straight day, a ritual that is expected to continue. . . . The Rams met for an hour Thursday to discuss the possibility of an upcoming NFL players strike. “From the drift I got, I’d say there’s no doubt there’s going to be a strike,” one player said. At Thursday’s meeting, players were told to prepare themselves financially in the event of a walkout sometime after Sept. 15, the first day the players can legally walk out. Gene Upshaw, president of the National Football League Players Assn., sent a 60-day strike notice to the National Labor Relations Boards on July 15.