Everett Much Too Sharp for Giants : Rams: Quarterback overcomes a back problem to complete 23 passes, including 18 straight, and spark the offense.

His team had dropped four in a row, twice managing to lose games they seemingly rallied to win in the final minutes. One columnist compared his throwing accuracy to Steve Sax’s. He was still recovering from a hip pointer. And, in two days, he was going to be looking across the line of scrimmage at every quarterback’s nightmare, Lawrence Taylor.

Then, just when Jim Everett figured things couldn’t get any worse, he woke up with a stiff back.

But, for some reason, the Rams’ quarterback decided to get out of bed Friday morning, anyway.

“We still believed in ourselves,” he said. “We thought we could beat the (New York) Giants.”

Sunday, Everett and Co. made believers out of the Giants, some 65,000 fans in Anaheim Stadium and millions of television viewers. He completed 23 of 33 passes--including 18 in a row at one point--for 295 yards and two touchdowns as the Rams beat New York, 31-10.

A victory to savor, to be sure, but for a while in the early going, it certainly didn’t look as if this was going to be Everett’s big day.

The Rams had a 3-0 lead, but Everett completed just four of his first nine passes when he dropped back and hooked up with Aaron Cox for a 15-yard gain.

A split-second after releasing the ball, however, Giant defensive end Mark Duckens slammed his helmet into Everett’s back and the Ram quarterback crumpled. Duckens was cited for spearing and the Rams had a first down at the Giants’ 11-yard line, but you can bet Coach John Robinson held his breath until Everett managed to get back up on his feet.

After that, whenever the Giants had the ball, Everett was lying flat on his back in front of the Ram bench with his feet in the air, trying to keep his aching back loose.

The Rams may have been a team with their backs to the wall, but Everett was a quarterback with his back to the ground.

Obviously, the exercises paid off. The offensive line provided Everett with near-perfect protection--the Giants did not have a sack--and Everett made use of eight different receivers. He picked apart New York’s zone defense, throwing mostly short passes, but he came up with the big plays, too, hitting Cox for a 51-yard touchdown with 45 seconds left in the half and then coming back 14 seconds later to throw a 21-yard touchdown pass to Flipper Anderson.

Both receivers made excellent catches, but this was a day when Everett was on the mark with the majority of his passes. He may have been throwing off his back foot and having trouble getting the ball to spiral during the Rams’ four-game skid. But he hit his receivers in the hands on this afternoon.

“Jim was really on today,” Anderson said. “And when Jim’s on, then we’re going to be clicking.”

Everett stood--rather stiffly--in front of his locker and admitted that he had a back spasm that “is killing me right now.”

But he never stopped smiling and managed to say all the right things and credit all the right people.

“Our offensive line made it really easy on me today,” he said. “I can’t remember getting protection like that for a whole game. It makes a huge difference and really demoralizes a defense.

“There were times when we had to go to third and fourth receivers and, boom, we got the first down. That was the thing we hadn’t been doing the last few weeks. I think we were much more efficient on third down.”

Everett found his rhythm and completed 18 consecutive passes until he overthrew Anderson on a long attempt on third and nine from the Rams’ 23-yard line. The record for consecutive completions in a single game is 20 by Cincinnati’s Kenny Anderson. The overall record is 22 by San Francisco’s Joe Montana.

However, he broke his team record of 14 straight completions set earlier this season against Indianapolis.

The Rams were leading, 31-3, when Everett heaved that bomb down the sidelines. A nice little swing pass to a back would have kept the string--if not the drive--alive. Everett said he was aware of his streak and the record, but at this point in a roller-coaster ride of a season, he was more concerned with winning than setting records.

The first thing he said to the media mob crowded around his locker after the game was, “No more slump, OK? That’s from all of us.

“If you look over the last four weeks, it hasn’t been as bad as you guys have been writing. There’s just been some breakdowns here and there. And I don’t think I’ve been throwing like Steve Sax.

“But, yeah, I feel a lot better about our performance. That wasn’t a monkey on our back, that was a gorilla.”

And, considering the state of Jim Everett’s back, it’s easy to understand why that was a burden he just couldn’t bear for another week.

HOT STREAK A list of Ram quarterback Jim Everett’s team-record 18 consecutive completions. 1. AARON COX: 15 yards 2. ROBERT DELPINO: 7 yards 3. BUFORD MCGEE: 2 yards 4. MCGEE: 8 yards 5. PETE HOLOHAN: 2 yards 6. GREG BELL: 13 yards 7. HOLOHAN: 6 yards 8. HOLOHAN: No gain 9. BELL: 10 yards 10. BELL: 5 yards 11. HOLOHAN: 6 yards 12. MCGEE: 6 yards 13. COX: 51 yards (TD) 14. FLIPPER ANDERSON: 21 yards (TD) 15. HENRY ELLARD: 30 yards 16. BELL: 9 yards 17. DELPINO: 5 yards 18. DAMONE JOHNSON: 6 yards