Vikings Still Won’t Ease Up on Everett : Pro football: Former Ram assistant Teerlinck, now Minnesota’s defensive line coach, relishes pressuring L.A.’s quarterback.

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

From the opening warm-ups to the second half of Sunday’s 31-17 loss, the Ram quarterback heard and felt plenty from the Minnesota Vikings, especially from defensive line coach John Teerlinck and the waves of purple jerseys he sent Everett’s way.

Teerlinck, by the way, was not on the best terms with Everett last season when he was the Rams’ defensive line coach.

So Teerlinck was still laughing Monday in his Minneapolis office when asked about Everett’s response after Everett was brought down by linebacker Jack Del Rio during the third quarter, right in front of Teerlinck.

“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 drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for whipping the ball at Teerlinck. Two possessions later, with the fourth quarter still to play, Ram Coach Chuck Knox pulled Everett.

“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 didn’t hide his disdain for Everett’s toughness while Teerlinck was with the Rams, said the Vikings’ plan Sunday was to hit him early and break Everett’s rhythm.

Although Everett didn’t have a disastrous day--he was 12 for 23 for 174 yards and a touchdown--the Vikings sacked him twice and had one interception.

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

Everett played down the sideline incident involving Teerlinck as momentary frustration, adding that he didn’t believe he was removed from the game because of it.

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

Knox noted that the Rams were trailing, 31-10, at the time, adding that he simply wanted to see if Mike Pagel could get something going.

Everett’s position coach, Ted Tollner, said that Everett told him Monday morning that he knew he had lost his composure. But Tollner said that he understands the frustration that caused Everett to throw at Teerlinck.

“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.

“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 Vikings’ pressure.

“The guy that 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.”