The league has just been steadily adjusting to that all out Rams passing attack. Martz STILL does not know how to utilize Marshall Faulk. He's not a frickin receiver he is a RUNNINGBACK.
Did you know that against the Panthers, in what ended up being the 5th longest game in NFL history, Martz only ran Faulk I believe a total of 19 times???
You gotta realize something about the Rams attack and why Warner couldn't cut it there, and why Bulger ended up having trouble too.
Its a risk/reward thing. If ya wanna have a QB get himself 101 rating and lead an offense that eats up more yardage than just about anyone else in the league, you've gotta be tough on your QB and that is exactly what Martz is. He doesn't make things easy for Bulger AT ALL in that offense. He tells him to sit back to the count of 4 or 5 and wait for those receivers to get open deep down the field. Then he doesn't even give him the kind of ground game that helps take the pressure off those kinds of situations.
When the Rams offense was working, defenses didn't know WHAT to defend. Marshall Faulk was eating up ground and doing damage like Priest Holmes has been doing the past 3 years, as perhaps the most feared runningback over that period. Also the Rams had 3 legitimate targets at WR in Bruce, Holt, and Hakim. Holt may be a god now, but Bruce is far from it nowadays, and they've had a bunch of untalented cabbage at 3rd WR ever since, without a proper TE to replace that hole at 3rd WR. What this all led up to, was helping the offensive line buy TONS of time for Kurt Warner to sit back there with a clean jersey and pick teams apart utilizing a cannon arm, super accuracy, and blazing speed at the WR spot. That OL blocked extraordinarily well.
Now, the OL has been blocking like crap for the past 2 years or so...despite having an all-world tackle tandem in Turley and Pace. I also suspect that the lack of a consistently DANGEROUS running game has made things way more difficult for the OL.
Bulger can't sit back and tear teams apart like Warner use to be able to when he had all the time in the world. But Warner can't operate that offense into winning machinery unless he's got plenty of protection...yet, Bulger can, and certainly DID this season. I mean guys lets be fair here since Bulger took over the Rams went 13-3 and lost that last game in DOUBLE OVERTIME. One of those losses against the lowly Detroit Lions I more than half suspect was because they only half-played the game knowing they were getting a bye week no matter what.
What Bulger does well is operate a smart passing game and be super accurate. He is streaky, a lot like Fiedler is streaky, but probably ten times better than Fiedler.
Its kinda funny how one double OT loss can get blown out of proportion to the point where one of the league's hottest commodities at QB becomes a dirtbag. Martz may indeed get rid of Bulger or allow some team like the Phins to grab him, but if he does its just another in a long line of crazy maneuvers by Martz as a head coach who has proved to be genius enough to get to the super bowl, and dumb enough to lose games by making stupid coaching decisions.
A lot like Bill Belichick was in Cleveland before everything he touched started turning to gold in New England. Could be worst though, he could have kept his job at the Jets and had THEM win a super bowl. Ugh. That would be aweful.
