Thanks to Everett, Many People Get a Piece of the Action : Rams: Ten players catch passes during comeback, but no one catches more than four.

Watching the Rams put together the greatest comeback in team history Sunday night had to rekindle warm, nostalgic memories of 1989 for many fans. Jim Everett slinging passes that spiraled into the waiting hands of his teammates for first down after first down, touchdown after touchdown.

But this 1992 version of Ram football is very different from the one of three years ago, and not only in terms of consistency and success. Offensive coordinator Ernie Zampese is still calling the plays. Everett is still throwing the ball. But these days, the passing game is truly a team effort. Call it pass receptions by committee.

In ‘89, the Rams completed 308 passes and more than half ended up cradled in the arms of three players: Henry Ellard, Flipper Anderson and Pete Holohan.

During Sunday night’s 31-27 victory over Tampa Bay, just about everyone in blue and gold who ever dreamed of catching a pass, caught one. Ten Rams caught passes. And, of the 25 passes Everett completed, no one caught more than four.

Anderson’s still there, of course. He had four catches and a touchdown. And Ellard had two. But you can bet that the Buccaneers’ defensive staff didn’t figure on Travis McNeal, Jeff Chadwick, Anthony Thompson, David Lang and Pat Carter accounting for 172 receiving yards and two touchdowns.

“That’s what we’ve been doing, passing the balls around,” said Ellard, who had 70 receptions in 1989 but has only 32 this season. “Spreading it around is one thing, but the big thing is that all the guys are making the plays.

“It’s a lot more exciting this way for the other guys. When you know you’re going to get a chance, you stay more involved. Let’s face it, if you’re sitting on the bench thinking you’re not going to get the ball, it’s hard to get into the game. Now, nobody knows who’s going to get the ball.”

The mystery, says tight end Jim Price, serves as motivation. You better not run a lackadaisical pass pattern. You might turn around to find a football stuck in your facemask.

“It definitely keeps everybody on their toes,” Price said, smiling. “You’ve got to run through your routes and come out of your break hard because you never know when the ball’s going to be there.

“And that’s the way it should be, instead of one guy getting the ball and everyone else standing around. We have a lot of different formations with different personnel in them. It keeps everyone involved.”

This new emphasis on passing-game variety has had a most positive effect on a number of Rams who are normally less-than-prime-time players. Guys who normally make their living flinging their bodies into headlong collisions on special teams are getting a chance to be on the Sunday night highlight shows.

“We always knew that all these guys are pretty good players and, given the opportunity, we can make plays,” said tight end Pat Carter, who had just one catch, but arguably the biggest one of the night. His eight-yard touchdown reception lifted the Rams to the 31-27 victory.

“It was just a one-on-one route but my guy dropped off me for some reason, so I just sat in the end zone and waited on the ball,” Carter said. “In the past, that play would have probably gone to Flipper. But now, we’re mixing it up and they just don’t know who to cover.”

Coach Chuck Knox said there is no grand plan to involve everyone. This isn’t Little League and you can be sure Knox isn’t running a democracy.

“Sure, I like it when everybody can share like that . . . if it’s there,” he said. “The big thing, of course, is we want to win. If 10 guys catch balls and we win, that’s fine. If one guy catches 10 balls and we win, that’s fine, too.

“We don’t have any pride of authorship, so to speak. We’ll take what they give us and if they take one guy away, we’ll go to somebody else.”

In the first half, Everett’s favorite target was Price, who had three catches for 41 yards by the intermission. In the third quarter, it was Chadwick, who had two receptions for 47 yards, including a 27-yard touchdown that pulled the Rams to within 10 points (27-17).

In the fourth quarter, five different Rams caught passes. Seldom-used running back Anthony Thompson grabbed a key seven-yarder on a second-and-six play. Lang went 14 yards with a screen pass leading up to the go-ahead touchdown. And McNeal rambled 38 yards after catching a short pass on third-and-eight from the Ram 27-yard line with 1:40 to play, ending Tampa Bay’s hopes of a last-minute comeback.

“They were trying to mix things up defensively and we just happened to find a bunch of different guys,” Everett said. “But man, Anthony Thompson coming into the game and running that pass pattern. And Travis McNeal catching that ball at the very end.

“That’s what we need to win around here.”