What Is a 2-5 Quarterback to Do? : Rams: Everett fights frustration as team gets ready to face the high-powered Oilers.
As his team limps deeper into the season--today, Ram quarterback Jim Everett is left to grin and bear it. And there really isn’t much else he can do.
Instead of providing a showcase for his ample talents as a quarterback, his team is a 2-5 oddity heading into its game today against the Houston Oilers (4-4) at Anaheim Stadium.
Instead of breaking through, his team has broken down. Instead of the Super Bowl, his team is headed toward mid-season oblivion in a season he calls his most trying.
Instead of the new Joe Montana, he is this year’s Archie Manning.
“It’s the most frustrating because things seem to be so much more out of control than any other time,” Everett said. “We’re trying to work on getting it back, though.”
The Rams have been trying to work on getting it back almost from Day 1 this season, from the moment they realized things were seriously awry. Might they be trying too hard?
“There’s no doubt the last three or four weeks, I’ve been pressing, trying to do a lot,” Everett said. “When you do that, I think it takes the focus part away from what you need to do.
“There’s certain points when it’s, ‘God, I just wish I could’ve done that better.’ But there’s games we won 44-20 that I could still name five or six plays I wish I could’ve done better. It’s just magnified when you lose.
“I want to do the best part I can to make this club win--realizing that I’m one of 45 guys. I feel I have a big hand on how some things happen, but I don’t think I take it all upon myself. I think I’d be a basket case if I did.”
More than anything else, Everett says he has to understand that he can’t try to carry the team by himself. Against the Steelers last week, Everett looked a little frazzled, and missed receivers far more often and wildly than he normally does.
Primarily because he has had to try to force things to make up huge deficits, Everett has completed only 54.6 % of his passes, the third-lowest mark among NFC starting quarterbacks.
The Oilers depend on their quarterback, Warren Moon. And with Moon guaranteed to pass 30 or 40 times today against the soft Ram defense, there certainly will be a feeling that Everett has to match him shot for shot.
Houston’s run-and-shoot system has made it the No. 1 offense in the NFL, and Moon is on a pace to threaten every single-season passing record in existence. When he is on, the Oilers can be untouchable.
If he is on today, Everett might be the only Ram who can keep them in the game. The Rams hope he doesn’t have to try.
“I think he’s doing a lot of very good things, but all of a sudden a great deal is asked of a quarterback,” Ram Coach John Robinson said. “Once you are behind, you ask him to start winning the game for you, play after play.
“I think, like everybody else, he wants desperately for the team to do well and wants to contribute and wants to do his job. And he certainly hasn’t been pointing any fingers at anybody else. But he, like me and everybody else, feels the pressure of our lack of success.”
In a season that began with at least one magazine cover predicting, “The Future Belongs to Jim Everett,” his climb to the elite level of NFL quarterbacks has been prevented by his team’s fall from grace.
Although Everett’s numbers are not bad--his 1,906 yards passing and 14 touchdowns are both second in the NFC--and although he isn’t even close to the main reason the Rams are 2-5, winning quarterbacks win.
Montana, the 49er quarterback and towering standard by which Everett is continuously compared, is 7-0 this year and has four Super Bowl rings to boot. He wins.
“I think that I’ve had some up times and some down times,” Everett said. “There’s still some things I definitely need to improve on. It’ll probably be about a C grade. And I think I probably fall into that category with a lot of my fellow teammates.
“What I need to do, with my personality and my position, I need to make sure I use the energy that I would call pressure and use it toward being more effective rather than less effective--if that makes sense.
“This still is a team sport, and you rely on a lot of people to do a lot of different things, and they rely on me to do what I do best. Other than that, that’s about as much as I can control.”
He can’t control the Rams defense, which has given more points than any other team in the league. He can’t control fumbles or dropped passes or blown punts.
All Everett can do is control his feelings, even when he feels the heat any 2-5 quarterback is going to feel.
“Facing the record of being 2-5 and knowing you’ve been whipped five times is tougher than anything,” he said.
Ram Notes
Coach John Robinson says that although the Oilers are certainly a talented offensive team, some of the outrageous numbers their offense has piled up are skewed by their throw-throw-throw mentality.
Houston, the No. 1 offense in the league, has 25 more first downs than any other team; quarterback Warren Moon has thrown for 2,487 yards (most in the AFC by more than 400 yards and most in the NFL by 253 yards); his 203 completions are 35 more than anybody else has; the Oilers have the four leading receivers in the AFC, Ernest Givins with 40 catches, Haywood Jeffires with 39, and Drew Hill and Curtis Duncan with 38 each.