Ram Bullpen Doesn’t Provide Much Relief : Offense: Pagel gets a chance to replace Everett when all is lost, and all stays lost while he plays.

Jim Everett held the ice bag to his right knee when the intended receiver should have been his head.

What’s the color of an Excedrin headache?

Sunday, Everett would have voted for purple.

Carlos Jenkins to the left of him. Chris Doleman to the right of him. And up the middle came a blitzing Jack Del Rio, who sacked Everett once and hounded him so relentlessly that that midway through the third quarter, Everett hauled off and tried to wedge a football in Del Rio’s face mask.

Incomplete pass.

Unsportsmanlike penalty on the quarterback.

Minnesota’s Purple People Beaters had Everett so dazed and confused--and, not coincidentally, so far behind on the scoreboard--that Ram Coach Chuck Knox rode to the emotional rescue and pulled Everett from the game with 1:31 to play in the third quarter.

“He knew I was frustrated,” Everett said. “I think that was pretty obvious.”

“The way the game was going,” Knox said, “I thought it was a good time to put Pagel in there and see if he could give us a little spark. And he did.”

A spark, yes. But when Mike Pagel entered the game, the Rams trailed, 31-10, and needed nothing less than full-scale conflagration.

Pagel burned the Vikings once, on his first series of the afternoon, which also happened to be his first series since the season opener. “Just a few weeks ago,” Pagel deadpanned. He drove the Rams 75 yards in nine plays, connecting with Jim Price for a 16-yard touchdown pass on the last one.

Rust never sleeps, however, and the longer Pagel played, the more it consumed him--with Pagel spending most of the fourth quarter looking every bit the part of an NFL quarterback who hadn’t taken a Sunday snap in three months.

Pagel’s second possession: Fourth-and-goal pass forced into double coverage, intended for Jeff Chadwick in the back of the end zone, when Price was open underneath.

“I made a poor decision,” Pagel said.

Pagel’s third possession: Interception by Viking safety Vencie Glenn at the Minnesota five-yard line when Henry Ellard was open in the end zone.

“I made a poor throw,” Pagel said.

Pagel’s fourth possession: First-down pass intercepted by Viking cornerback Anthony Parker at the Ram 40-yard line when no one in the vicinity was open.

What more could Pagel say?

The Rams lost to Minnesota, 31-17, and the way they lost had Knox declaring it the team’s poorest performance since a 40-7 defeat at Buffalo. But Pagel serves as kind of a human gauge for these sort of things, and he also played against Buffalo, his first and only appearance before Sunday.

“They brought in a new pitcher,” Everett said, and didn’t seem too displeased about it. “Chuck was looking for a change-up.”

“This job is like being a relief pitcher,” Pagel said. “It’s very similar to that, except a relief pitcher gets in a lot more often than a backup quarterback. Realistically, you go into every game thinking you’re not going to play.”

In some shape or form, disaster must strike first: either a disabling injury or a crippling deficit.

It places Pagel in a most awkward predicament, because he knows that what’s best for his quarterback rating is what’s worst for his team.

“It’s the old saying--’You’re only one play away,’ ” Pagel said. “But, really, quarterbacks this time of year don’t go down. Early, maybe, but this time of year, it’s not likely.”

This time of year, most starting quarterbacks are bidding for playoff paychecks. Not in Anaheim, though, so when Everett begins firing incompletions and jawing nose-to-nose with 250-pound middle linebackers, Knox throws up his hands and waves in the junior varsity.