Don’t Slight Rams and Everett

A strange thing happened one time for a National Football League playoff game. They brought a band from Florida to Cleveland, instead of bringing the game from Cleveland to Florida.

Thus, the rich custom was perpetuated of presenting to the populace an NFL showpiece in an environment dark and windy, amid sub-freezing temperatures, on a slippery field.

You dare suggest games of such impact be shifted to places offering championship conditions, on neutral grounds, and they will ask for your deportation.

It’s like Art Modell, the proprietor of Cleveland, once told us, “Ice and snow notwithstanding, local fans still want to experience that emotion.”

So unless they catch a dome, as the teams will Sunday for the Pittsburgh game at Houston, most tournament teams brace themselves for what awaits the Rams in Philadelphia--weather for which Bermuda shorts aren’t recommended.

You toss Buffalo, Cleveland, the Meadowlands and Denver into the picture and what usually develops, in this grandiose promotion, is a crap game of sorts in which the luck element expands beyond what it should in major athletic contests.

The Rams are encamped in a village of brotherly love for Sunday’s match, calling upon every facet of football science for cold-weather preparation.

This will include the usual assortment of footwear, undergarments and headdress. It will include ear-warmers, hand-warmers and behindwarmers, not to mention assurance from the staff the other team is just as cold.

But games suffer in such atmospheres because the full attack repertory can’t be implemented. Conditions limit what a team can try, resulting in merchandise for a big game actually inferior to that one normally sees.

Do the Rams have a shot against the Eagles, favored in their home precincts?

It is hard to understand why not. The Rams, for all their crises this year, have a quality that’s appealing. They make money plays.

And they do this on both offense and defense.

Striking examples are seen in New England last week when the Rams, just about beaten, hit on a 53-yard pass.

All of a sudden, New England, rising from its resting place, is back on the Ram four, with time for one run or three passes.

It tries three passes. The Rams successfully defend against each.

This is how things have gone a large part of their season, and you don’t write off teams that make money plays.

Now you draw back and compare quarterbacks. The Eagles have a great athlete functioning there named Randall Cunningham. He slides past rushers with insolent skill.

The Rams have a quarterback, Jim Everett, who isn’t a great athlete but who has a better arm. So you ask yourself, assuming you feel worthy of your conversation, “Do you want a great athlete, or do you want a guy who throws the ball straight? And if great athletes matter, why didn’t Rafer Johnson play quarterback?”

You aren’t minimizing the qualities of Cunningham, because on his feet, he may be the slickest ever to play the position.

But with the forward pass, he hasn’t enjoyed the best year, and you don’t see him as any more effective than Everett, who, for the Rams, has turned into a very precious discovery.

It is interesting that Everett should be signed by the Rams with Dominic Frontiere, the owner’s mate at the time, serving as closer on the deal.

The story goes he negotiated by telephone with Ladd Herzeg, then general manager of Houston, to land Everett in a trade hardly favorable to Houston.

By his own admission, Dominic, coming into football, didn’t know how many lined up on the field. And here he was, talking up a deal with the Oilers, helping skin them out of a player maybe most important to the Rams’ success today.

The science of preparation for big games isn’t always visible to the millions who watch, but when you hear commentators observe, “Football is still a game of blocking and tackling,” you want to dismiss such simplification as granny talk.

If it were only blocking and tackling, why would Bud Grant, one-time frequent figure in postseason, forbid a player from wearing red shoes? Bud permitted only black.

“If it’s individuality a player is looking for,” Grant said, “he can try wrestling.”

Why would George Allen post the sign in the dining room: “No milk at lunch”?

It was George’s medical diagnosis that milk in the middle of the day left players with cottonmouth and cut down their wind.

And Red Miller, who took Denver to its first Super Bowl? For the playoffs, Red added a special assistant to his staff, linebacker Randy Gradishar.

“He’s my bitching coach,” Red announced. “Any player wanting to bitch can go see Randy.”

First in line was a running back. He found a roach in his hotel room.