5 Reasons Why Rams Fans Should Take it Easy on Marc Bulger

Throughout the years, Marc Bulger has been the center of criticism for many Rams fans. While Marc Bulger definetely was not without fault, he was not under the best of circumstances to rise as a great quarterback.
Consider these 5 things that he has had to deal with:

1. Abysmal Offensive Line

Marc, as many of you may know, has gotten sacked more times over the past few years then any other quarterback. Even though the offensive line has made tremendous strides towards improvement this year, Marc took so many hits over the earlier years that it no doubt hurt his game.

  Marc Bulger goes down against the Seahawks via photos.upi.com

2. Front Office Mediocrity

The front office, over the years, has made very poor decisions that has prevented Marc from playing both with a truly strong team. Look at some of the 1st round picks the past 7 years, and tell me which of these players have truly become Pro-Bowl caliber players (other then Steven Jackson, of course.) I include this reason simply because Bulger would take criticism for bad teams, though the front office was not making the greatest decisions.

3. Coaches, Coaches, Coaches

Over the past 7 years, Marc Bulger has had 5 different head coaches: Mike Martz, Jim Vitt, Scott Linehan, Jim Haslett and now Steve Spagnuolo. Though two of these coaches were just interim coaches, this many coaching changes also means a lot of changes with coordinators. Who knows how many coaches Marc Bulger has had to work with. As seen with Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy, consistency with coaches pays off in the long run. There was none of that to be seen in Marc Bulger's time with the Rams after the end of the Mike Martz era. In addition to many coaches, there was conflict in the team about coaches, especially Scott Linehan. Steven Jackson was one of the players who was not exactly all for Scott Linehan.

4. Impossible Expectations

Everyone remembers who the quarterback was before Marc Bulger, right? Well I'm sorry, but Marc Bulger is not Kurt Warner, and as much of a Warner fan i am, i don't think the expectations for Marc were exactly fair. Criticize the front office for getting rid of Kurt Warner, and credit Marc for doing his best to keep the team competitive until 2005-2006.

5. Recievers

This one really only applies to last year and even more so this year. All was good the first few years when Bulger still had Bruce and Holt to throw too (along with Curtis and even Looker), who at the time were still definitely capable of putting up the numbers. But when the Rams started getting rid of these guys, they forgot that they no longer had the receivers to come in and play at the level required of this passing attack. Donnie Avery is a good receiver, but not a number one receiver (yet).  This year, also, it is important to consider the number of receivers the Rams worked with this year, and how difficult it must have been for Marc to try and grow proper timing with these guys in very short time. Yet he has played well with Brandon Gibson despite the limited time the too have had to work on timing.

Yeah, Marc Bulger may not be able to truly lead our team anymore, injury or no injury. And yes, he has made mistakes over the years. But before we put all of the blame on him, consider those 5 things before you do so.