No question, it's Marc

Warner's warming up, but Bulger earned the job

Quick quiz for Rams fans. Last Sunday they came from 10 points down in the fourth quarter to win. When was the last time they won a game after trailing at the end of three quarters?

Give up? The answer is Sept. 20, 1998, and the opponent was Buffalo. The Rams' quarterback was Tony Banks, who dove over the goal line for the winning score.

That's right, in the three Kurt Warner glory years that followed that 4-12 season, and in four games under Warner this year, the Rams never accomplished a fourth-quarter, come-from-behind victory. Until last Sunday, when Marc Bulger brought 'em back against San Diego.

Warner watched that '98 Rams-Bills game from the bench. He wasn't even Banks' backup that year. That honor went to 36-year old Steve Bono. It was a miserable season, and you'd have thought the kid from the Arena League might have earned a shot somewhere along the line, but no, he languished on the bench as the third quarterback, finally seeing some mop-up action in the last game of the season.

The message is that sometimes mistakes are made, and I believe a terrible mistake is about to be made this season if Bulger goes back to the sidelines when Warner's broken pinkie is healed, as Mike Martz has indicated. The coach has mentioned how he has had to simplify his offense for Bulger, which, for a genius like Martz, must be as painful as Einstein having to teach high school physics. He has described the things Bulger can't do in justifying his decision to go back to Warner when the time comes. How about describing the things he has done, and they are indeed phenomenal. And don't forget that Bulger wasn't even No. 2 on the depth chart, just as Warner wasn't in '98. The backup was Jamie Martin, who became a quick one-game flunk. This is Bulger's resume:

On his first starting series in the NFL he took his team 97 yards for a TD. And this wasn't against a nondescript, middle-of-the-road outfit, it was against the 4-0 Raiders. He completed his first seven passes. He worked much of the game with his offensive line in shambles. Orlando Pace was out, and his backup, Grant Williams, broke his leg early in the second quarter, requiring position switches at three spots. Bulger said afterward that he was hardly touched, but this was a kid whistling to keep his courage up. He was hit plenty. On the play in which Williams was hurt, Bulger was nailed so hard by Tavian Smith that he flew two yards back, into Williams, with such force that it shattered and dislocated his ankle.

That was Game 1 of the four straight victories to which he has quarterbacked the Rams. Game 4, against San Diego last Sunday, required him to put together two fourth-quarter drives, the first one 94 yards, with no timeouts left and Marshall Faulk out of action and a receiving corps that had given the Chargers a 10-point lead with its fumbles.

But here's the thing that has struck me about Bulger. Did you see the way his teammates responded to him? How about that one-hand, bat-the-ball-to-himself TD of Isaac Bruce's? And Bruce's artistically crafted final TD, squeezing in just inside the pylon? How about the furious way Faulk's backup, rookie Lamar Gordon, attacked the defense, positively hurling himself at the tacklers to keep the final drive alive?

I didn't see all of Bulger's five starts, but I did see three of them, and when big plays were needed, that's the way the Rams seemed to perform under his direction. How come they didn't do that for Warner while they were losing their first four games of the season?

All sorts of theories have been posed about that miserable start, most of them dealing with psychology. Too complacent, not emotional enough, out of sync, whatever that means. I have my own theory. I think there was a general feeling that their quarterback wasn't right, physically, and it sowed that seed of doubt, of uncertainty, that was never known in the great years, when it was felt that Warner could do anything on a football field.

I haven't heard one person in the Rams' organization, including Warner, mention any physical problems, either lingering or current, in connection with the QB. If they know something, then it's a deep, well-kept secret. The CIA would be proud. But to my dying day I will say that the guy simply wasn't physically right during this period, he wasn't delivering the ball right, he wasn't throwing on the move the way he used to. I won't be talked out of it. All you had to see were the close-up shots of his ball in flight. There were a lot of ducks, pathetic wobblers, meatballs. Nope, this was a different quarterback. I'm not a great fan of the NFL's system of rating passers, but how else do you explain Warner's numbers, which averaged triple figures for three years, suddenly diving to 66.4 this season, close to the bottom of the league?

I caught the ESPN pregame show one Sunday, and the topic was Warner, and the panel was batting around different theories, and Steve Young, the only QB among the panelists, kept repeating, as if he were addressing a classroom of slow students, "He's hurt. He's not throwing right. Just look at the way his ball moves." It was Cassandra, a voice in the wilderness. Nobody paid attention. I did.

So now Martz wants to bring Warner back, unless, and I'm wondering if there's a master plan at work here, we'll just be hearing week to week that he's not quite ready, and we'll be hearing that right through the season. Sort of the way the airlines like to 20-minute you to death when they announce mechanical problems ... check back in 20 minutes, check back in 20 minutes ... and pretty soon you notice that they've held you there for three hours. Or maybe I'm simply being too Byzantine.

If Martz can guarantee that the Kurt Warner who took the team to the Super Bowl will be aboard, fine. Bulger's been great and all that, but the other guy has the skins on the wall. But what if the 0-4 Kurt Warner is the one who arrives after the pinkie is OK? What if he, and the team, revert to the kind of play that got them the 0-4 record? Does he bring in Bulger off the bench to try to save a game? And the booing that Warner would receive, oh boy.

The 4-5 Rams can afford one more loss, if they want to reach the playoffs, possibly two, although both teams that could be their competition for the wild card, the Giants and Bucs, have beaten them. An 8-8 mark will do it only for the winner of a weak division. Martz does not have much maneuvering room here.

I've heard some TV analysts talk about how defenses seem to have caught up to Warner. They've figured out how to blunt his effectiveness. This, I believe, is nonsense. They've been able to blunt a guy who's not physically right (seems that I've mentioned that before). If I'm wrong, if there's absolutely nothing wrong with him except for diminished skills, then it's a real shame. It's sad.

Sometimes just mere aging, not being able to move the same way, cumulative wear and tear, can take the edge off a quarterback's game. In 1976 I was a beat man for the New York Jets. I watched them in practice every day. I covered all their games. Toward the end of the season I got a call from Don Klosterman, the Rams' general manager. He was an old friend. We had both played on the West Coast in the same era.

"You see Namath every day," he said. "Tell me about him." The implication was obvious. He was thinking of picking him up when he became a free agent.

"He can't play, Don," I said. Namath had come off a season in which he threw four touchdowns and16 interceptions. His rating was 39.6.

"Well, I had a guy at their practices and he said he was throwing as well as he ever had," Klostie said.

"He'll always throw well in practice," I said, "because he doesn't have to face a rush. But he can't play."

In May the Rams picked him up anyway. He didn't last the season. But in practice he always threw well.

I think Bulger is an exceptional quarterback who should be running the Rams' offense until the real Warner returns, maybe not until next year. I don't know how they're going to judge that. I don't know how it will work out with two of them on the roster. At one time the Rams actually had two Hall of Fame quarterbacks playing at the same time, Norm Van Brocklin and Bob Waterfield. They shared the load. Neither of them was happy, but the offense was devastating in those days.

You have my feelings on the matter. Martz has the problem.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. To send a question to Dr. Z's Mailbag, click here.

 

Related information

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video