Tag Archives: Jim Everett

The Rams, the 49ers, and the Beautiful Stupidity of Conviction

I’ve always hated the 49ers.

And they—meaning the 49ers, their fans, the entire Bay Area apparatus of smugness and fog and sourdough-based self-satisfaction—have always hated the Rams right back, which creates this beautiful, terrible equilibrium, this mutually assured animosity that’s been humming along for three-quarters of a century now like some vast engine that we all keep stoking because, what else are we going to do? Find meaning in our work? Connect authentically with our inner child? Please.

I once asked my grandfather (a Niners fan to the marrow of his bone) to take me to a Rams game and he told me, “I ain’t going to see no goddamn Rams.” And it’s been this way for 75 years. He was not interested in dialogue, in finding common ground, in the undemanding reconciliation that contemporary culture insists upon. He had chosen his side, and that was that.

The thing about my grandfather’s refusal—and it was a kind of absolute refusal that suggested he would sooner have taken me to witness a public flogging or to tour a horse shit plant—was that it arrived like some ancient decree handed down from Mount Sinai, chiseled not in stone but in that particular California bedrock of sports fanaticism, that stratum of collective identity running deeper than family loyalty, political affiliation, or religious devotion. He simply thought, with the certainty that others reserve for religious conviction, that the Rams were an abomination.

Consider the theology of sports fandom. It demands faith without evidence, loyalty without reciprocation, hope in the face of repeated disappointment. It asks you to invest emotional capital in the performance of millionaires who have no idea you exist, who may leave your city tomorrow if offered a better contract. And yet we comply. We transmit our allegiances generationally. My grandfather could have spared me. He could have said, “You’re right, let’s go see the Rams, they’re just another team.” But that would have been a kind of spiritual fraud.

The beauty—and I mean this sincerely, without irony, though I recognize the absurdity even as I defend it—the beauty of my grandfather’s refusal was its purity. In an age of promiscuous enthusiasm and non-committal dabbling, when people speak casually of “rooting for” five different teams across three different sports, when allegiance has become as fluid and temporary as a Hollywood marriage, my grandfather’s stubbornness stood as a kind of monument to an older, fiercer way of being. He would no sooner have attended a Rams game than he would have voted Republican, eaten sushi, or worn a pair of designer jeans. These were not options available to him within the circumscribed universe of his convictions. He had built a self, and unfortunately the load-bearing walls of that self included an undying devotion to the 49ers.

Those sorry ass 49ers.

My Football Cards: Jim Everett

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I decided to read Franny and Zooey again after all these years and found a Jim Everett football card tucked inside. I must’ve used it as a bookmark. It had been waiting there through all my mistakes and minor humiliations–wedged neatly between pages 42 and 43, like a slightly bowed time capsule sealed shut by accident. The card was from 1991, Topps, number 532 in the set.

Holding it, I was carried back to a ridiculously pastel living room in the suburbs, me lying belly-down on the plush, shit-brown carpet, watching Everett throw post routes to Henry Ellard and Flipper Anderson. The Rams were in those royal blue and yellow uniforms that looked like something out of mythology. Back then, I didn’t understand the cruelty of the game, or how short the arc of a hero’s flight could be. I thought quarterbacks lasted forever. I thought glory was permanent. I thought the world rewarded the competent, the handsome, and the hopeful. I didn’t know yet that time dissolves everything.

I bought that book, I think, sometime after college, back when I believed J.D. Salinger could explain things to me — about understanding this mysterious thing called life. Everett, meanwhile, was explaining something else on the field: how cruel sports could be. He had the rocket arm, the charisma, the Hollywood setting. And then came that playoff game in January 1989, the one every Rams fan remembers for all the wrong reasons — the one against the 49ers where Joe Montana, calm as a surgeon, turned the Rams into irrelevant background noise. By the next year, the whispers began: soft, inconsistent, maybe not a “winner.”

Years later, I saw that interview with Jim Rome again. Everett’s anger—the sudden table flip, the lunging—became one of television’s favorite jokes. But I didn’t laugh. There was something horrifyingly human about it, the nakedness of being mocked beyond endurance. Rome smirked, the audience laughed, and Everett became a meme before memes existed. Yet what I saw was a man collapsing under the weight of too much visibility.

Holding that card, I thought of Franny Glass praying herself into madness, Zooey drowning in irony and intellect. Both crushed by the awareness of being watched, by the impossibility of authenticity. Maybe Everett experienced the same thing, in another language: the slow psychological rot of performance, the exhaustion of being perceived.

I slipped the card back into its place and started reading again, though I already knew how it would end: in exhaustion, in longing—in the quiet understanding that, like Everett, like Franny, no one is ever really saved. Only remembered for a moment, tucked between the pages.

Heartbreak In Philly

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The Los Angeles Rams’ 2024 season came to an end, not with the quiet dignity of a chapter closing but with the sudden, brutal finality of a book torn in half. Divisional round. Snow falling in thick, relentless sheets. The air was heavy with the weight of inevitability, as though the game had been decided long before the first snap. And yet, somehow, the underdog Rams fought as if they hadn’t heard the script, as if they were determined to rewrite their fate, line by line.

The Rams weren’t just tough; they were rabid. The defense, with rookie linebacker Jared Verse running on pure venom, ripped through the Eagles like the cold wasn’t biting into their skin. Seven sacks. Four before halftime. Nine the week before against the Vikings. They weren’t just hitting—this was dismantling and peeling apart Phillie’s top-notch offensive line bolt by frozen bolt.

But the Eagles—they’re the ghost you can’t outrun. Jalen Hurts is that guy who takes the punches, spits blood, and then smirks like you’re the one who’s tired. Sack him, slam him, throw him into the snow, and he still drags himself up like it’s some kind of sick game. It’s maddening. He’s maddening.

Then came the moment—26 seconds left in the third quarter. Rams down 16-13. Neville Gallimore and Keir Thomas ripped into Hurts like wolves, drove him into the end zone, and turned him into a snow angel. A safety! One-point game. You could feel it—the shift. The world tilted, just slightly, like maybe this wasn’t all doomed. For a split second, the universe seemed to wink in their direction, as if saying, “Maybe.”

But miracles are con artists. They promise you salvation, then pick your pocket while you’re looking at the light. Fumble. Kyren Williams. Fumble again. Matt Stafford. The ball hits the snow, and the hope you were holding onto melts into slush. The defense, battered but defiant, tried to save the game with their bare hands, holding Philly to a pair of field goals. But the final stretch was ugly, desperate. A touchdown for them, one for us. A bloody back-alley brawl masquerading as football.

And then, the final drive. The Rams, battered and exhausted, made their last stand. For a moment, it felt like a scene from a film, the kind where the underdog rises above the odds. But this wasn’t a film. It was real, and in reality, the snow doesn’t stop falling, the clock doesn’t stop ticking, and sometimes the hero falls short, 28-22.

It’s not fair. It never is. It’s raw and stupid and tragic, and maybe that’s what makes it unforgettable. Because this is the Rams, and this is life—sharp edges, broken rhythm, beauty that leaves you bruised…and a whole lot of snow.

Joe Namath and the Land of Make-Believe

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Joe Namath’s short, stumbling turn with the Los Angeles Rams in 1977 felt like the end of something—not a hero riding off into the sunset but into the smog-soaked haze of Southern California, where everything glimmers until you get close enough to see the flaws and cracks. Namath, Broadway Joe, the icon of a bolder, brashier, more Technicolor era of football, came west on legs that barely worked, trailing the last threads of his gridiron mythology.

It started as you’d expect. Namath, tan and all teeth, strolling into Rams camp in Anaheim, a city so homogenized it feels more like a punishment than an encore. The reporters showed up in droves, salivating for Broadway Joe, but what they got was Joe Blow: knees like shattered glass, and a man visibly unsure of why he was even there besides a paycheck. They stuck a Rams jersey on him, shoved him in front of a camera, and tried to sell it like an old hit in a new package.

Namath played four games. It’s almost funny how little time it took for everything to unravel. The opener against the Falcons was fine—nothing memorable, just Namath going through the motions. But then came the Monday night game against the Bears. It wasn’t just bad—it was humiliating. Four interceptions. Four. You could see it on his face—this mix of disbelief and something darker, like he knew this was the bitter end. He’d spent his career balancing myth and reality, walking the line between the flawed man he was and the larger-than-life image he’d built—and now his relevance was nearing the end. He had become the guy who had stayed too long at the party, leaning on the bar, hoping someone would buy him another round.

Off the field, you’d hear whispers. Namath spotted at the Chateau Marmont, Namath drinking martinis at the Polo Lounge, and Namath laughing loudly with Ava Gardner at Sinatra’s party in Palm Springs. The same old Joe, still playing the role of the charismatic rogue, but there was something forced about it now. He didn’t belong here, not in this city, not in this moment. He wasn’t here to play football—he was here to be a memory, a remnant of something glamorous and exciting, trotted out in a city that thrives on its ability to repackage nostalgia as the next big thing.

Four games. That’s all it was. Four games in the horns, and then Namath was gone—off the roster, off the field, off the VIP list. But those games remain, suspended in the strange purgatory of memory and a reminder that every legend, no matter how bright, eventually burns out. Namath’s shadow still lingers in LA in the way that it keeps telling stories long after the warriors between the lines have exited the stage, been wiped off the marquee, and dissipated out of our collected dustbin of memories.

They Call Him Flipper

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The Superdome buzzed with this faint, disoriented energy, like a crowded nightclub past midnight—November 26, 1989. Rams versus Saints. I wasn’t there, of course. I caught the game on TV, sitting in a living room with pastel couches, a glass coffee table, and a massive Zenith console screen flickering through the haze of Marlboro smoke. A virgin. A nerd. A dweeb. 14 years old.

Willie “Flipper”Anderson’s night wasn’t just good—it was the kind of good that makes you suspect divine intervention. Playing for the Los Angeles Rams, Anderson racked up an astonishing 336 receiving yards in a single game against the New Orleans Saints, a record that remains untouched. Three hundred and thirty-six yards!

Flipper looked unremarkable at first. Skinny frame. Quiet. No chain swinging, no trash talk, none of that Deion Sanders “look at me” stuff that ESPN loved to replay back then. He just ran his routes, caught a ball, and ran some more. And then he did it again. And again. And again.

“I wasn’t slated to start that game until Henry Ellard got hurt that Friday. I was just thrown into the game, and that happened. But I felt pretty good that day,” Anderson said. “Everything that was going up, I was catching. Our quarterback, Jim Everett, was spot on. All the balls were right there. It was just one of those nights where everything was just clicking.

By halftime, it was like everyone on the Saints’ defense had simultaneously lost their balance. Watching them try to stop Flipper was like watching drunks stumble around on Bourbon Street after Mardi Gras. Defensive backs were diving for air. Linebackers tried to close gaps that weren’t even there. It wasn’t just that Flipper was faster—it was like he was on some invisible wavelength, like he knew what was going to happen three seconds before anyone else did.

After the game, Anderson handled his achievement with the humility of a man who’d just finished mowing his lawn. “I was just trying to do my job,” he said, as though his job description read: Break the fabric of reality through unparalleled athleticism. It was a masterclass in understatement.

I think about Flipper sometimes. About what it means to hold a piece of history that no one else can touch. Does it boost him when he’s having a rough day? Does he even care?

“I’m glad it happened, he said. “That’s one of the things that’s kept me kind of relevant throughout my retirement. It’s a pretty important record. And given the way that they play football today, there’s a lot of passing going on, and for that record to still be standing, I’m pretty proud of it.”

More Horns in the Mailbox

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I had a pretty cool mail day today, receiving a card back from former Rams Defensive Back Rod Perry. (imagine an idiot scurrying back from the mailbox, drenched, in a sheet of rain. Yep, that would be me. I also received a book from my ex-girlfriend: a gorgeous, spoiled rotten, pill-popping hypochondriac)

Perry was a two time Pro bowl selection who during the first six of the eight seasons he was with the Rams made the playoffs, played in four NFC Championship Games and also in Super Bowl XIV against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“He studied film, he analyzed routes that receivers were going to run–their breaking points,” said former head coach Chuck Knox. “He knew where his help was going to be in various coverages, and he really was a great student of the game. He overcame a knee injury to become one of the best corners in the National Football League.”

Perry, a Fresno,Ca. native, was seemingly always meant to be a Ram. “I always dreamed of playing in the Los Angeles Coliseum,” said Perry. “I remember watching a game that was played there when i was young with my dad. It was the Dallas Cowboys and the Rams and I just said, Wow.”

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I also received a stack of 1989 Score from Bob over at I’d Rather Be Sitting in a Ballpark. This brings my grand total of cards with the guys in horns to 73, so thank you so much for your generosity and helping me build up my collection, good sir. Please give his baseball blog a gander if you get a chance, especially if you’re a fan of the Cubbies.

There were the usual suspects in this stack like Jim Everett, Jerry Gray and Jackie Slater, but I was intrigued by the draft pick card of a guy named Bill Hawkins. His name just wasn’t ringing any bells.

Well, Hawkins was drafted out of Miami (FL.) University, and he played four years at Defensive End with the Rams before retiring with a second knee injury. He now owns a law firm in Port Salerno, Florida. Of course, I just had to contact said law firm to request an interview–although I haven’t heard back as of this posting. You’re probably wondering, “Why in the hell would this busy, important, big shot lawyer get back to some dinky, trivial, insignificant blog!?” Well, you’d be right. I think, actually I know, that I was probably drinking a little bit too much hooch (whiskey/ ginger ale highballs) and it seemed like a good idea at the time. So,….uh….sue me and I’ll plead temporary insanity.

The “Dark Ages” of Rams Fandom

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If you’ve been a Rams fan for a while–as I have been for over 35 years–then congratulations, you’re still alive and kicking and hopefully your mental health is (sort of) intact. We’ve gone through some tough times, haven’t we? As philosopher Freidrich Nietzsche was quoted as saying, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.” More specifically I’m referring to the infernal suffering of the “Tony Banks Years.”

Banks played for the Rams from 1996-98 and was unexceptional in every conceivable way, not once leading the Horns to a playoff spot, and sporting a horrendous 14-29 record. The quarterback was criticized for his poor decision-making and lack of leadership and was often booed by the fans. He was also known for his inability to make plays when needed most. (I must add that the transcendent and inspiring Kurt Warner was a third-string backup on the ‘98 team, sitting behind Banks and then 38-year-old, broken-down 49ers castoff Steve Bono. Yikes. Also, he was not related to Sonny.)

Even today the words Tony Banks conjure images of mediocrity and little demons with pitchforks poking me in the ass. It’s almost uncomfortable to let the words roll past my tongue, like uttering his name is an evil incantation. I remember people would ask me what team I followed and when I’d respond they’d mostly just stare with a look of confusion and pity. A few even told me that they had never even met a Rams fan in person and then heckled without impunity even though the team was a bottom feeder that had been exiled into irrelevancy for almost a decade.

There are other names, of course, that you may or may not know, all of them part of the Dark Ages: Robert Delpino, Lawrence Phillips, Chris Miller, and June Henley. Henley, only known to the most psychotic of fans actually led the team in rushing the only season he played in 1998 with an anemic 313 yards. The perfect metaphor for a sad sack organization, he retired with a toe injury and then got busted for stealing televisions and beer from WalMart.

The Rams have had a history of ups and downs, with periods of great success followed by years of disappointment. But through it all, Rams fans have remained loyal and resilient, cheering the team on no matter the outcome. ( also, despite being bamboozled by vivacious, bottle-blonde, black widow owner Georgia Frontiere) In the face of the darkness of the Tony Banks years, we could always take comfort in the fact that we were united by a common bond – our love for the Rams. We chose to be Rams fans, and we chose to be loyal no matter how crazy or irrelevant we seemed….and not always with mental health intact.

An Ass Whooping and a Merlin Olsen Book Marker

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Halftime: Cowboys 33 Rams 9. I suppose it was karma for being pleasantly amused on this very blog by fans of ‘Merica’s Team (grown men in most cases) crying on national television after a loss to the 49ers in last year’s playoffs. I regret nothing. Grown men shouldn’t cry over a football game. Period. One particular namby-pamby even became a living meme after whimpering in his girlfriend’s consoling arms.(Admittedly, I once shed a lonely tear after a playoff loss….except I was 12. freaking. years. old.)

Being the poor sport that I am, I cursed the crescendo of bullshit, turned off the TV, and decided to finish a book I’d been enjoying. I then chopped some vegetables and made a pretty hardy stew. (the secret is to cook it with hate instead of love, it really brings out the flavors. Also, add a dash of disdain and a dash of wine. Drink the rest.) I read later that the game was so out of hand that whoever was in charge of deciding such things nationally switched the game to Philly/Redskins (Commanders? Football team?) evoking memories of the “Heidi Bowl,” except that there was no amazing comeback in this one, just a whimper. And if you’ve never heard of the Heidi Bowl then congratulations, you’re probably not as old as dirt and if you want more information then you can summon the internet gods.

What can I say about this one? Putrid, rancid, debilitating, smelly, shitty, appalling and repugnant. Sunday Bloody Sunday. I’m rubbing up against the idea that this team just isn’t very good. But life continues on…the book was entertaining if you like surrealist short stories in the vein of Hitchcock and Kafka, and the stew was tasty if you like, well, stew. All was well in the world, I had a pleasant buzz, and the temperature outside was dipping rapidly amid a persistent, dull rain.

P.S. The S.F. Gold Diggers lost their 3rd in a row at the hands of the Bungles so all was not lost. Schadenfreude.

Jim Jodat…Buddy Holly Glasses, Iron Man

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So I’m watching a Rams/49ers game from 1977 when announcer Vin Scully mentions to his cohort Sonny Jergensen that the Rams kick returner is wearing coke-bottle, Buddy Holly-style glasses, which immediately catches my attention. I had never seen such a thing and was instantly intrigued. Who was this guy? (note: this was also Joe Namath’s last game as a starter for the Rams, outdueling Jim Plunkett 34-14.)

I must admit that Jim Jodat certainly didn’t look like much of an athlete, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote.

He had a squatty build and suspect eyesight, but he sure could run. The 5-foot-11, 210-pound Milwaukee native also had a fanatical work ethic and gritty determination that drove him to become Carthage College’s career leader in rushing, to play in the NFL for seven seasons, and to return the opening kickoff in Super Bowl XIV in 1980.

In 1976, Jodat was selected by the Los Angeles Rams in the 12th round of the NFL draft, the 344th overall pick. He went on to play with the Rams, the Seattle Seahawks, and the San Diego Chargers over seven seasons.

Jodat spent his rookie season on injured reserve with a sprained knee. In 1977 he made his mark on special teams since the Rams’ backfield was clogged with talented backs John Cappelletti, Lawrence McCutcheon, Cullen Bryant, and Wendell Tyler.

“He was behind a lot of great players with the Rams, but Jim was never a guy to try and talk a coach into more playing time,” Tom Brannon said. “He just didn’t have that kind of personality.”

In January 1980, Jodat appeared on the cover of The Sporting News as the special teams’ captain for the Rams. Jodat, as mentioned above, returned the opening kickoff for Los Angeles in Super Bowl XIV against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Unfortunately, the Steelers won, 31-19 after the Rams let a 19-17 lead dissolve in the fourth quarter.

Jodat died on October 21, 2015, of cancer in Lake Forest, Ca.

Wendell Tyler’s Car Accident

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Wendell Tyler was 23 and coming into the prime of his life. He’d just signed a new contract with the Rams after rushing for 1,109 yards and leading the team to the Super Bowl, where they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He’d gone to West Virginia with his wife in the offseason to spend time around her family. On the night of July 4, 1980, he went to a dance at a local church. It was the offseason and Wendell thought he was entitled to a good time, and by the end of the night, he was tired so he slept while his brother-in-law drove home.

When Tyler’s brother-in-law fell asleep at the wheel with his foot on the accelerator, the car careened into the ditch and came to a stop against a mountain. The brother-in-law had a broken arm. The brother-in-law’s neighbor, who had been in the back seat, had a broken leg. Tyler was lucky–he dislocated his hip.

The car got the worst of it. ”It looked like an accordion,” Tyler said. ”Only you couldn’t play it.” He laughed weakly at his joke, then said seriously, ”It was truly a traumatic experience.”

Tyler spent the next two weeks in a hospital, with not much more to do than think about how he had got there. Even now, with his fortunes turned around and his life in order, he shudders to think what might have happened had the car lurched in the other direction towards a cliffside.

In 1981 the Rams finished 6-10, but Tyler ran for 1,074 yards and scored 12 touchdowns. In 1982 the strike cut his yardage production nearly in half, but he still scored nine touchdowns.

”I was lucky,” he said of the auto accident. ”I had a non-football-related injury. The Rams didn’t have to pay me, or do anything. But they stuck by me. They took care of me, even after the doctor had told me I only had a 10 percent chance to play again.”

Eventually, when the Rams figured they had a chance to get Eric Dickerson, they traded Tyler to the 49ers with Cody Jones, an aging defensive lineman, and a third-round draft choice for one of the 49ers’ two second-round draft choices and a selection in the fourth round.

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I’d like to send a wholehearted thank you to Michael Cruz of the 702 Rams Club for sending me this AWESOME swag recently. Please check out their site for some really great t-shirts, beanies, pins, and stickers. If you’re in the Las Vegas area they have weekly family-friendly gatherings for all the games during the season. It really is a great organization, and if I didn’t live a thousand miles away I would definitely be a weekly attendee, although I’m proud to support them from afar in Texas. (Oh yeah…f*ck the Cowboys)