This Season, Everett Will Have Help : Rams: Tollner, former USC coach, says he can help quarterback regain his timing, confidence.

Game by game, with a historian’s eye for detail and a football man’s fervor for prime talent, Ted Tollner has studied the Jim Everett video library, volumes 1988-’91.

And game by game, the Rams’ new quarterback coach says, he grew to understand exactly what series of events lifted Everett to the top of his profession in 1989, then as swiftly threw him back to Ground Zero.

That kind of rise and fall, Tollner can understand.

Tollner himself has ridden more than his share of roller coasters and has visited rock bottom in public view enough to be acutely aware of the circumstances now facing Everett.

At USC, Tollner was heralded as the natural, rightful successor to John Robinson’s glory years, and in 1985, three years into his tenure, won the Rose Bowl and was voted Pacific 10 coach of the year.

The next year, the Trojans went 7-4 and he was fired.

Under his successor, Larry Smith, USC, led by many of the players Tollner had recruited, became a national power again and Tollner slipped from the L.A. sports scene.

Now, back again, thanks to Ram Coach Chuck Knox, Tollner knows that nothing he does will ever reverse history.

“I don’t feel bad about the results at USC,” he said. “I didn’t like being fired, obviously, but I thought we were on the right track. The powers that be didn’t. So I didn’t go away from that feeling that I had to put my head in the sand and hide.

“It isn’t any, ‘See, I told you so, I can do this.’ We all have egos and we all like to be doing well, where people think, ‘Hey, this guy knows what he’s doing.’ That part of it, you want to be part of that. No more than that.”

There is more to Tollner’s story, however.

Last season, Tollner was the offensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers under Coach Dan Henning with promising young quarterback John Friesz.

Then, after San Diego lost the opening game of the season to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Henning fired Tollner. At the time, Tollner said, Henning told him that he wanted total control of the Charger offense during a season that the coaches knew could end with the entire staff being fired. But Tollner, who was denied permission to join another staff during the previous off-season, says he doesn’t understand the timing of his dismissal. He had already told Henning he would accept any role Henning wanted. Then he was out.

Tollner watched as the Chargers struggled through another bad season, culminating with the firing of Henning.

“It was a hard season to not be part of,” Tollner said. “I’ve always believed this game is tough. If you lose, you’re open to strong criticism. But I think part of the joy of this job is when you get into those situations, seeing people stick together and try to fight through it.

“But this one exploded on me before the fight. And I wanted to be part of the fight. (Afterward), I was worried because I didn’t know very many people who had ever been fired after one game--not assistants. I thought, ‘Well, am I going to be labeled a bad guy or a guy that can’t get along or a malcontent?’ ”

Not in Knox’s book. When Knox got the Ram job and went looking for the right man to guide Everett back to success, his choice was Tollner.

“I liked the fact that, one, he was knowledgeable,” Knox said recently. “Two, I liked the way he handles people. I thought, ‘Here was the guy that could relate to the quarterback and talk with him about some of the problems, some of his concerns, would bring to me anything he thought that I might know or should know at that particular position.’

“I thought he’d be the perfect guy to come in and work with Jim Everett.”

Tollner’s job is not complicated: Get Everett going. And keep him going.

Everett, although he openly wanted one, didn’t have a position coach last season.

Everything being done now is designed as a foundation for tough times. Last season, when difficulties arose, Everett sank.

This year, he will have Tollner.

“You really find out about each other when you’re in the heat and this is not the heat now,” Tollner said. “Until you go through game-pressure duress, he doesn’t know what I’m all about as a coach and I don’t know what he’s all about as a player.

“I think even if a guy doesn’t really want to admit it, it’s natural that confidence dwindles. When you’re losing 10 in a row and you’re not throwing touchdowns, you’re throwing interceptions, I don’t care what you say, there’s a certain amount of confidence that has to come out.”

Although Tollner was interviewed by the Pittsburgh Steelers for their offensive coordinator’s job, Tollner says that the challenge of working with a talent such as Everett’s in the kind of steady situation Knox provides compelled him to stay in Southern California.

In training camp, Tollner is working with Everett detail by detail: exactly how many steps to take on the drop for this pass, exactly whom he is to look for in what order on each play, exactly how he should step and throw every time in the pocket.

Everett’s decline from the 29-touchdown high of 1989 to the 20-interception misery of last season has been analyzed. Some said that he looked jittery in the pocket, throwing off-balance to avoid pass rushes either real or imagined. Some said that he had lost his confidence. Others said that he tried to do too much.

Sometimes Everett was under tremendous pressure, and had to throw hurriedly. But sometimes, Tollner says, Everett anticipated pressure that wasn’t there and forced himself into poor throws. Sometimes, Everett was simply indecisive, uncertain of where to go or what was happening around him.

Tollner says that will change.

“I feel so confident, even though we’ve got a lot of things we’ve got to shore up here, that the guy is so talented and wants to be a player so badly and is very intellectually sharp, the limitations are things that pure work can iron out,” Tollner said.

“And I’ve heard people say, ‘Well, he’s a little bit shy in the pocket.’ (Is he) fundamentally unsound at times? Yes.

“But you can’t play that position and make the throws he’s made, focused up the field with those aggressive people that can really put a hit on you, you can’t do the things he’s done in this league and not have courage. You just can’t do it.”