Cheap Talk Worth It to Vikings’ Assistant : Football: Everett plays right into the hands of former Ram coach John Teerlinck, now guiding Minnesota’s defensive line.

Jim Everett had been taunted, twitted and tossed down with tremendous force. The heat was on, and he was the one twisting over the fire.

From the opening warm-ups to the first quarter and into the second half of Sunday’s 31-17 loss, the Rams’ quarterback heard it and felt it from the Minnesota Vikings, especially from boisterous Viking defensive line coach John Teerlinck and the waves of purple jerseys Teerlinck sent Everett’s way all day.

Teerlinck, by the way, was not exactly Everett’s closest chum last season when Teerlinck was the Rams’ defensive line coach.

So when Everett got taken down by linebacker Jack Del Rio in the third quarter, right in front of a barking Teerlinck, what happened was something Teerlinck was still laughing about Monday in his Minneapolis office.

“He fired the ball at me,” Teerlinck said. “Got me, too, right in the chin. He completed that pass.

“I was yelling at him the whole game, yelled at him in the warm-ups. I was yelling out to break their cadence, yelled at Del Rio when he tackled him, and I think the guy just got frustrated.

“In this league, if you can get a player to think of something other than the game, you’ve got him. He was definitely aware of my presence.”

Everett whipped the ball at Teerlinck, accurately, and drew an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty. Two possessions later, with the entire fourth quarter left to play, Ram Coach Chuck Knox pulled Everett from the game.

“Cost him 15 yards, and a series later, he takes himself out or I guess gets pulled out,” Teerlinck said. “I’ll take a ball to the chin every time for that. Got a cut to show for it, too.”

What was Teerlinck yelling at Everett?

“Before the game, I told him, ‘We’re going to go after you,’ ” Teerlinck said. “He just jogged by. Then during the game, I was yelling, ‘Hey, Jim, we’re really getting to you, aren’t we?’ ”

Teerlinck, who never did much to hide his disdain for Everett’s toughness while Teerlinck was with the Rams, said the Vikings’ plan Sunday was to hit him early and knock Everett off kilter.

The Vikings got a bone-crushing sack from linebacker Carlos Jenkins in the second quarter, sacked Everett twice on the day, and generally pounded him as hard as they could for as long as they could.

Although Everett didn’t have a disastrous day--he was 12 of 23 for 174 yards and a touchdown--the Vikings intercepted him once and walked off the field as two-touchdown victors.

“Our game plan,” Teerlinck said, “was on the money.”

Everett, for his part, both after the game Sunday and again Monday, played down the incident as momentary frustration, and said he didn’t think he was removed from the game because of it.

“I wouldn’t make too much of that,” Everett said Monday. “I’m sure that there’s frustration. I’m sure we all have it. Anytime you’re getting beat like that, no one is too happy in this business.”

Everett acknowledged that he was involved in more yelling matches and tussles with defenders Sunday than usual, and pointed to the Vikings’ style of play for explanation.

“I guess for them that’s part of the game,” Everett said.

Monday, Knox said Everett’s sideline shot wasn’t the reason he decided to remove him from the game in favor of Mike Pagel.

Down, 31-10, at the time, Knox said he just wanted to see if Pagel could get something going and made sure to say Everett is still, without question, his quarterback.

“He’s a veteran quarterback that’s been around,” Knox said when asked if he was concerned about hurting Everett’s confidence. “There’s no big stigma attached to that--down 31-10.

“It’s not the first time I’ve done that in my career. . . . I’m the last guy in the world probably to put a yank on a guy (in order to) have a guy feel like somebody else’s looking over their shoulder or something like that.

“That’s not the case here at all. I just felt (at) 31-10, it was the thing to do at that time.”

Everett’s position coach, Ted Tollner, said Everett told him Monday morning that he knew he lost his composure, and Tollner said that, under the pressure Everett received, he thought the quarterback had a decent day.

And Tollner said he understands the frustration that caused Everett to zing Teerlinck with the football.

“A penalty like that is uncalled for, and yet if you look at his side of it, there was frustration of a lot of things not being done right in the game,” Tollner said. “And then a coach jabbering at him from the sideline. . . . And when a coach does that to you, and they get to you and you lose composure, they’ve won and we’ve lost.

“Even though you might say it’s warranted, it never really is. You can’t lose composure, and that’s the part that he regrets and so do we.

“That’s part of the position: No matter what happens, no matter the adversity, you have to be above it all. You can’t ever come apart because so much of our success is contingent on you being in control of yourself.

“I understand why it happens. At some point, you just break for a second, you just respond emotionally, and after it’s all said and done, you wish you hadn’t done it.”

But Tollner stressed that Everett didn’t shatter under the pressure, and that anybody who still questions his toughness after Sunday’s game isn’t watching the same game Tollner was.

“The guy who I’ve seen this year is not a quitter,” Tollner said. “He’s got every bit as much toughness as you’d like to have. Some people have questioned his toughness, but yesterday and really through the year, he has been hammered, blindsided, and he has come back, stayed in the pocket and he’s been aggressive like you need to be.

“That’s an area people have questioned, and it’s not justified.”

RAM NUMBERS

HIGHLIGHT: TERRY ALLEN Looking at his season statistics through 11 games, one would think the Rams would have known what to expect from Terry Allen Sunday. He had been all-purpose back personified: 163 rushes for 720 yards and seven touchdowns; 31 catches for 303 yards and one TD. So, how do the Rams defense the talented Viking? They don’t! The 5-foot, 10, 197-pounder out of Clemson caught 10 passes--twice as many as his previous-game high--for 110 yards and one touchdown, and rushed 23 times for 88 yards and two more TDs. Allen left Ram defenders grasping for air whether he was catching the swing or screen pass or taking the straight handoff or the pitch in producing his best performance of the season.

SEASON TO DATE 12-game totals (Record: 4-8) First Downs RAMS: 206 OPP: 240 Rushing Yards RAMS: 1,205 OPP: 1,736 Passing Yards RAMS: 2,326 OPP: 2,371 Punts/Average RAMS: 59/41.5 OPP: 48/43.1 Rushing RAMS: ATT: 292 AVG: 4.1 TDs: 8 OPP: ATT: 352 AVG: 4.9 TDs: 18 Passing RAMS: ATT: 353 CP: 205 TDs: 17 OPP: ATT: 388 CP: 232 TDs: 9 Penalties/Yards RAMS: 60/417 OPP: 88/675 Fumbles/Lost RAMS: 20/11 OPP: 20/10 Interceptions/Yds RAMS: 13/216 OPP: 13/224 Scoring by Quarters

1 2 3 4 OT TOTAL RAMS 21 67 59 70 0 217 OPP 82 65 50 67 0 264

Possession Time RAMS: 27:56 OPP: 32:04