That's three in a row

The Bills, Dolphins, Falcons, Saints and Rams.

It's not good company to be in, and I'm not sure if the Rams qualify as the best of the lot among the league's winless teams anymore. (The Saints play tonight, but no asterisks.) Those other teams have scored touchdowns, some of them even scored more touchdowns yesterday than the Rams (they've got two TDs) have all season.

When a team that includes Marc Bulger, Steven Jackson, Torry Holt, Issac Bruce, Drew Bennett and Randy McMichael among their starting offense scores just two touchdowns on the season, it is completely inexcusable. I'm not sure I'd put all the blame on the line this week either. Bulger only got sacked once - not that the Bucs needed to sack him when they could just wait for one of those pithy screen passes to flop into the wrong hands - and rushers averaged 4 yards a carry.

Rex Grossman had a better day, and he might lose his job after this weekend.

There's plenty of blame to go around for the team's troubles, but once again the coaching and the play calling deserves most of it.

I've search and I can't find where it was discussed last season, but I very clearly recall, after the offense struggled last year too, that they finally, at Bulger's behest, incorporated more of the deep routes in the passing game that so defined the "Show" era. The main reason being, the players were familiar with those plays and had the skills to make them work. And that was the story, the Rams had a new identity, one that mixed the best of the "Show" with the running skills of Steven Jackson and grounded ball control theory from the sidelines. It didn't turn them into a Super Bowl team, but they scored points and won games. They also scored points against defenses much better than the ones we've seen through three ineffective games this year.

Remember when we thought that 8-8 would be a disappointment this season?

There were a few positives: the defense played well again (until being completely abandoned by the offense in the 4thQ), the makeshift line worked, uh, what else? Still, the final score rendered any positive to be found in this game absolutely meaningless. Dallas looms.