To be "all Bulger, all the time" but taiko had the best suggestion I've yet to hear for what to do with the Rams struggle at QB. Let the boys duke it out. Not literally of course, but make the spot "open." Give each of the three equal reps in practice and see which one grabs the mantle with any authority.
One of the biggest problems the Rams have is the lack of leadership on the field. Oh sure, plenty of guys beat their chest on the sideline, but who's calling their teammates out for sloppy play or lack of toughness. All those late rollovers we've seen this season and last aren't just the result of lacking talent. Bulger, whether he likes it or not, has to assume some leadership for this team - broken record alert - that fall in that "other duties as assigned" aspect of the $65 million contract he signed prior to last season.
He's done it before. Remember 2006 (ah, 2006, high times at 8-8)? Statistically, Bulger's best season, and when some soft play kept letting the team down, Bulger called his mates out on it, publicly even. I had high hopes for the guy at that point, and didn't think to bat an eye even when he signed that gargantuan deal last summer.
Per today's story in the Post-Dispatch, players did some soul searching in the wake of last week's stunning embarrassment and recognize a good opportunity to get some pride back against the 49ers this week. From the easily manhandled D-line, here's DT Clifton Ryan:
When we play our best game and we're accountable to each other, we can compete with any team in the league, and we showed that the first three games when Jim took over. I don't know what happened. We've got to get that mind-set back from when we played Dallas and we played New England and we played Washington.
Sounds like he does know what happened. Sounds like he recognizes, like the rest of us watching those games, a "mind-set" thing plagues the Rams. I also like hearing the word accountable come from a player, since it seems to me the lack thereof lies at the heart of the team's problem. I just hope someone with some kind of authority or of influence in the locker room is making this point, rather passionately, to the rest of the team...and that the rest of the team takes it to heart.