RAMS : Everett Comes Out of Hiding After a Relaxing Off-Season

When everything around you is falling into chaos and everything you throw is falling into the wrong hands, what should a $2-million quarterback do?

When the football team as you have know it implodes into nothing and people snicker that instead of the next Joe Montana, you’re the next Joe Ferguson, what can you do?

Jim Everett, 29, former fair-haired boy who is now a veteran of defeat, chose the Houdini escape out of the Rams’ two-year car crash.

After last season, he just disappeared. Vanished, with only the stinging trace of his 11-touchdown, 20-interception season left behind.

Once the Rams played their final game of 1991 in Seattle, a shaken, silent Everett packed up his things and took off from public view. No quotes, no appearances, no analysis of what went wrong.

He is back at Rams Park now, working out with some of the other veterans and sharpening up for the NFL quarterback skills competition this month in Hawaii. But he still looks like a man who carries the weight of 24 losses in two seasons on his face, a man who wants to bask in quiet time. He has had to reassess where he wants his career and life to go and how to get it there.

“Over the past few years, I’ve caught myself trying to do too much on and off the field,” Everett said this week in his first public words since the 1991 season ended. “That’s why you don’t see me right now. I’m taking care of me, and that’s what I’m trying to get set.

“I wanted to do my thing for a while. It’s very relaxing. I’m kind of enjoying my life, enjoying what’s going on. I’m only going to be 29 one time and I’m going to enjoy it. And when the football season comes around I’ll hopefully be the most focused guy.

“It has been a little different, maybe just focusing on what I’m going to do instead of trying to see the big picture all the time.”

The big picture has been harsh on the eyes the past two seasons, the high-flying Rams plummeting to earth after their trip to the 1989 NFC championship game. Everett was a trigger-happy 26-year-old back then, the hottest quarterback in a league that loves hot quarterbacks.

But as the John Robinson Glory Era evaporated, so did Everett’s status as the next Great One, and, especially last season, he often appeared hesitant, confused, devoid of confidence. And that was off the field.

“When I first came in I was very impressed, you see a lot of things,” Everett said. “It was very successful, early in my career. And we’ve taken a couple of hits on the chin.

“It makes you step back and say, ‘Hey, what were the types of things I was doing . . . what have I been doing lately, take care of yourself and bring it back, and hopefully be a stable player this team needs.”

So what went wrong? Everything. After the 1990 season, Everett went public with his dismay over the front office’s lack of leadership and direction. And though he never has said so publicly, it was clear he also lost confidence in Robinson’s leadership. He lost even more in himself. Everything was wrong, and the more he tried to make it right, the worse it got.

“It was almost like you start taking extra risks every time,” Everett said. “If you ever go to Vegas, bet a few dollars here and there . . . (if) you start taking the unnecessary risks all the time, pretty soon you don’t have any money.

“I think I just caught myself, Jim Everett, trying to take the uncommonly high risk all the time, thinking I needed to do that, which I don’t.”

Which is a way of playing, appropriately enough, that lands squarely in line with the proven safe-and-sane offensive philosophy of Chuck Knox, the Rams’ head coach who considers Everett “the most talented quarterback” he has ever coached.

“I think that’s where I’m trying to set my mode, saying I don’t need to take risks,” Everett said. “I don’t need to take those risks in my life, on the field, off the field, I’m just going to kick it and get the job done.

“And I think you’re going to see a much more confident and relaxed player.”

Subtly but surely, Everett is conceding that he did lose direction the past few years, that sometimes he is prone to stretches where his confidence dips into the nether regions.

He didn’t throw a touchdown pass in the Rams’ first five games last season. In the final three, the darkest times for the franchise in recent memory, Everett threw seven interceptions as the team’s losing streak reached 10.

“There’s been some swings in my confidence, but I don’t think I ever lost my confidence,” Everett said. “Well, maybe the last couple games of the season when a lot of things were for naught, and I’d be a liar to say they weren’t.

“Everything seemed to be for naught. We weren’t being motivated, players weren’t motivated, it was a tough time, and I think I threw quite a few interceptions the last couple of games.”

He admits he still hasn’t quite recovered from all that, and anyone who saw his pained look in the locker room in December at Seattle knows why.

“I’m probably still going through the process of it,” Everett said. “I still have questions. Plan B has come and gone (with the Rams signing four players), and I still have the question of were we that effective in Plan B. And again, that’s not my job, I’m contradicting everything I just said (about not looking at the big picture). But I’m human, I’m looking at it, I hear things, I want to see things, too.

“I still have to be totally convinced of what’s going on. I’m convinced Chuck Knox is the head guy. I still want to see the commitment being made by everybody.”

One of Knox’s changes that Everett obviously relishes is the dedication to run the ball effectively, something the Rams failed to do the past two years. In 1991, the Rams averaged a measly 3.3 yards rushing per carry.

“I think you see our most successful years (occur) when our running game has been most successful,” Everett said. “It might not be the gross number of yards passing, but it’s the most efficient yards passing that happens when we get a good running game.

“We talked about that a lot last year, did nothing about it. Hopefully we’ll do something about it.”

Knox has not been shy about implying that one of his biggest challenges is to get Everett back to the 30-touchdown machine he used to be. The first step was hiring an experienced quarterbacks coach in Ted Tollner, something Everett had been asking for since Norv Turner, passing game coordinator, left for Dallas in 1991. Everett doesn’t disagree when told him he looked alone and isolated last year.

“That was a main concern of mine that never really got even close to being solved,” Everett said. “Now with Ted coming in here . . . I look at Ted as a type of guy who’s overqualified to be just the quarterbacks coach.

“I’m glad to have him. He’s a great technician, his knowledge of the game is great, and he’s just going to be my guy . . . me and the other quarterbacks. I guess I’m being selfish, but I need to be these days.”

Back to Work: After receiving treatment recently, Knox now says he might not need serious back surgery after all. Before treatment, the pain in his lower back had gotten so bad that it had been assumed he’d need surgery just to be able to stand on the sideline during games. Not anymore. “I feel so much better,” Knox said Tuesday. “It feels great. But I’m not playing any golf, not twisting and turning, I’m not going to take any chances with it.”