RAM NOTEBOOK : In Coury’s View, Everett Just Needs a Little Time

ANAHEIM — The plan was to keep Jim Everett on steady ground at all times, and now things are beginning to sway under him again.

The idea was to stay away from third-down pass situations, and now the pass-oriented Rams are looking at the possibility of facing another season full of them.

The key was to keep Everett comfortable and efficient, and one week into the season, the burden of offensive responsibility weighs heavily on his shoulders, and he has dropped to the bottom of the NFC quarterback ratings.

Is this the way the rest of the season, which resumes Sunday in the Rams’ home-opener against New England, is going to go?

“I think the pressure’s always on him,” said tight end Jim Price, one of Everett’s closest friends on the team. “He’s the man on offense. He’s the franchise player, and no matter what happens, if we’re running the ball or passing the ball, he’s always going to be held responsible for wins and losses.”

Everything the Rams didn’t want to happen to Everett happened Sunday against Buffalo: Four interceptions, three sacks and a poor running game.

Under the same pressures a year ago, Everett had 20 interceptions and only 11 touchdown passes and the Rams lost 13 games.

When defenses key on the pass attack, Everett has at times been unsteady in the pocket.

But one man who knows Everett says talk that Everett can’t handle pressure is nonsense.

Give Everett enough throwing time and he will deliver, says Dick Coury, the Rams’ quarterbacks coach during Everett’s late-1980s glory days and now in his second year as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator.

“Everybody’s complaining about Jim--he’s throwing off his back foot, not setting and all that baloney,” Coury said this week. “Getting knocked on your fanny all the time, it’s hard to sit in there and throw.

“He’ll stand in there with anybody. He’s as tough a quarterback as there is. . . . I do know this, I’ve seen (Joe) Montana and (Dan) Marino and (Mark) Rypien, and if they’re getting pressured all of the time and knocked down, they don’t stand in there and throw like you would like to. No one can.

“I’ll tell you this, with Jim, if he has time to throw, he’ll kill you. I’ve said it before and I still believe, he’s a franchise guy, one of the top five or six quarterbacks in the league.”

The main thing, the Rams’ current coaches say, is to slow down opponents’ pass rush. An early deficit, some wobbly blocking and the pass-rushing performance by defensive end Bruce Smith in the Buffalo game prevented that.

But the Rams say this will not be the norm. Everett won’t be forced to choose between staying in the pocket and getting shelled or getting rid of the ball fast and risk interceptions. They will run better, and block better, they say.

Because Hurricane Andrew wiped out the Patriots’ scheduled regular-season opener in Miami last week, New England comes into this weekend’s game unusually well-rested and healthy.

“I thought that it was real hard to deal with in terms of peaking and trying to peak right at the opening day against Miami,” said Patriots Coach Dick MacPherson, “but I think that we get some more people well, we got a lot of people rested.”

MacPherson, credited with reviving a moribund Patriot franchise last season with his college-inspired enthusiasm, proved just as energetic during a conference call with local reporters this week.

MacPherson, asked if he thought his rah-rah approach might wear on his pro players, disagreed.

“Enthusiasm, perseverance and innovativeness--I think you apply that to anything in life, I think you’re on the right track,” he said.

“I think we talk about that in football, you certainly have to be innovative. In my opinion, to play this damn game, the money is not enough, you have to be enthusiastic and love it. And most assuredly, like what happened to the L.A. Rams last year, you have to learn to persevere.

“Now you just picture a guy like me going home and don’t you think my wife likes to see a man come home enthusiastic? Likes to see me innovative?

“Boy, would she like to see me persevere.”