Trading Everett Now Best for All
Sooner or later, the Rams are going to trade Jim Everett. It is an inevitability now--the only positive resolution possible to a situation that turned sour long ago and has since deteriorated to borderline unwatchable.
The only question left is when.
Do the Rams trade him after the season, after another 6-10 finish and another 20 interceptions, when Everett’s emotional scarring will be that much deeper and the market glutted with available quarterbacks who will be younger or cheaper or both?
Or do they trade him now, with the Oct. 19 deadline approaching and at least two teams, Miami and Philadelphia, in dire need of temporary help while their All-Pro starters mend on the sidelines?
Miami thought it was headed to the Super Bowl before Dan Marino tore an Achilles’ tendon. In a depleted American Football Conference, the Dolphins could still get there, with the right replacement for Marino--someone with more savvy than Scott Mitchell, someone with more real football skills than Tommy Hodson.
Philadelphia was undefeated before Randall Cunningham broke a leg. Then Bubby Brister took over and the Eagles lost to Chicago. Pittsburgh got rid of Brister for a reason. No one named Bubby ever quarterbacked anybody into a Super Bowl, and this one now stands poised to become the scourge of the entire state of Pennsylvania.
For the first time since early 1990, when Everett was going to be The Next Montana--you remember, don’t you?--the Rams can shop their quarterback to a seller’s market. They need to act today, if not sooner.
Never again will Everett command this kind of value, not with the conclusion of a fourth consecutive losing season and birthday No. 31 less than three months away.
Recently, Sport magazine assigned someone to rank the starting quarterbacks in the National Football League. Judging from the printed result, the correspondent must have lost some major change betting on the Dolphins, because Marino weighed in at No. 8, behind Everett at No. 6.
The writer went on to speculate about all the great things a superior passer such as Everett might have accomplished had he been gifted with the cornucopia of supporting talent Measly Marino has enjoyed all these years.
At first I considered this lunacy.
Now, I see it as an opening.
John Shaw should fax this article, along with a copy of the current AFC standings, to Don Shula with the notation, “Make your best offer.†Houston is 1-4. Seattle is a contender in the AFC West. Shula has to be tempted; with Marino or without, he may never have a better chance to return to the Super Bowl than 1993.
Right now, the Dolphins are discussing possible trades for Warren Moon, Bernie Kosar and Chris Chandler. Moon is five years older than Everett. Kosar is $1.5 million more expensive than Everett. Chandler is, well, Chris Chandler.
None of them will start for their respective teams today.
Everett, meanwhile, has started 86 consecutive games. For both the Dolphins and the Rams, this is reason enough to make a trade. The Dolphins are looking for experience, the Rams--16-39 in Everett’s last 55 starts--are looking for a different experience.
What could Everett bring the Rams in a trade? Right now, maybe a No. 1 draft choice. Maybe a No. 2 and a No. 3. Whatever, striking today beats waiting for the price to drop come February.
At 2-4, the Rams are no closer to turning the program around than they were this time last year. This time next year, the Rams want to be building around another quarterback. So what do they have to gain by playing out the string with Everett? To see if Everett can pull himself together and go 6-4 down the stretch so Chuck Knox can claim he took a 3-13 team to 8-8 in just two seasons?
Trading Everett now would mean dumping the final 10 regular-season games into the lap of T.J. Rubley, who has yet to take one regular-season snap. Horrors, shrieks the NFL Establishment, of which Knox is a card-carrying member. This is precisely why half the league is either 3-2 or 2-3 and why two out of every three games are decided by the field-goal kicker.
No one wants to take a chance.
The worst thing Rubley could do is flat-out bomb and lose 10 in a row. So? Everett lost 10 games in a row in 1991 and the Rams did nothing to remedy the predicament except draft some kid from Tulsa in the ninth round, name of Rubley. Lose 10 straight again and the Rams are at least in position to select Tennessee’s Heath Shuler, the Troy Aikman of the ’94 draft.
But suppose Rubley sticks. Suppose he completes all his handoffs to Jerome Bettis, soon to be primary task for any Ram quarterback. Suppose he completes enough short passes to put 17 points per game on the board, which is more than Everett has done. Suppose he tucks the ball in and scrambles for the first down on third and 10 in the rematch with the Falcons.
Had Rubley been in there Thursday night, I suspect the Rams would be 3-3 today. Rubley’s a runner. That third-down parting of the green sea was made for him. You could almost sense the soles of his feet itching on the sideline while Everett hesitated, hesitated and, ultimately, lost.
Too many people have confused the Rams’ quarterback situation with San Francisco’s. Nobody is asking Rubley to replace Joe Montana or Steve Young or even Steve Bono. Rubley would be replacing a shellshocked quarterback who had his last outstanding season in a different decade, who has been living off 1989 longer than the Republicans did.
For the best interests of all concerned, it is time to trade Everett. He needs a fresh start, some place he can call home without getting booed. Everett is not a bad guy; to the contrary, he is probably too nice for the demands of his vocation. Miami would be the perfect escape for him. He could fill in for Marino, he could win a few games, he could feel free to read a newspaper again.
For the best interests of all concerned--Everett, Rubley, the Rams and their fans--it is time to get on with the future. The present is too depressing to even consider, and has been, for quite a while.
