Free Brian Quick?

Brian Quick's absence from the St. Louis Rams active roster on Sunday was bound to happen. His playing time through two weeks had been virtually nothing, and the coaches made it official by confining him to the pine against the Bears.

And why was Quick left off the roster this week?

"The other guys are still ahead of him," Jeff Fisher told the Post-Dispatch.

"You're not going to keep seven guys up. You keep six; sometimes you keep five. We've got (Chris) Givens handling some of the returns and it's just one of those things. (Quick)'s going to be a good player."

As Bernie Miklasz pointed out, praise for Quick was far less effusive in September than it was in April, when the Rams were touting him as the next Terrell Owens to every media outlet that would listen.

So Quick isn't ready. The real question to ask here isn't "why not." What we need to know now is just how far away his is from being ready. Is he so far off, that playing him would put the Rams offense at risk ... at risk of accumulating 160 yards of total offense?

The receivers played pretty poorly across the board, with Danny Amendola bottled up. The worst offender might have been Brandon Gibson, who dropped what should have been a touchdown pass on one of the Rams few (only?) viable scoring plays.

So what happens this week? Do the Rams put Quick on the field? Do they start developing some plays for him practice this week?

Opponents watching the tape from the Bears game will get a pretty good idea of how to put a lid on the Rams' offense and lockup their receivers. Quick's size and strength may override however much development he has left.