Bulger out

Marc Bulger's officially been ruled out of the Cincinnati game. He's had a setback in recovery from the concussion he received in the Seattle game.

Bernie Miklasz is pretty much all over this. He mentions something I worried about a couple of posts ago: Brock Berlin, your new Rams starting QB, hasn't gotten many snaps in practice and is going to be rushed into action. Scott Linehan's made a mistake there. He gambled wrong hoping Bulger would be fine. Berlin should have been prepared sufficiently to play Sunday.

Bernie also opines that Bulger ought to be shut down for the season. There's a lot of good reason for that. The nature of his injury, the fact the Rams have been long out of it, the chance to see if Berlin has got anything, the fact that upcoming opponent Green Bay has one of the league's best defensive lines, the fact that upcoming opponent Pittsburgh has always had a tough defense, the $65 million investment the Rams currently have in Marc, and securement of a very high draft position, top 5 for sure, for 2008.

The minuses? Dooming the team to 3-13, possibly denying the Big Dead a chance to make the playoffs, forcing Rams fans to watch Brock Berlin and/or Todd Bouman (who is in fact on the team now).

I haven't had strong feelings about automatically shutting Marc Bulger down, but there isn't much it can hurt now, other than Marc's and the team's long-term futures. It'll show strong character on Scott Linehan's part to go ahead and shut Marc down, put player welfare ahead of your own record. Go ahead and do the right thing here, coach. Give Marc the rest of the year off. The fans will understand.