I'll start with Mike Martz and San Francisco's shrewd move to capitalize on the craven idiocy of the Rams' "brain trust" by signing Isaac Bruce to a two-year contract. The same contract he was after here, was willing to sign here, was promised here and had richly earned here. Instead, he was unceremoniously dumped instead by an organization he clearly outclasses right now anyway.
Rams Nation has to be fired up that we are free of the best receiver in the history of the franchise, easily the second-best receiver on the team, and the man who is the face of St. Louis Ram football, while we've still been able to hang on to bungling head coach Scott Linehan and the notion that Drew Bennett will ever be able to do anything on a football field besides underachieve.
Two people in particular did not impress me in this process, a shame, because it was their first chance to make a good impression. #1 is Al Saunders, who Bernie Miklasz repeatedly said didn't put up much of a fight to keep Isaac. #2 is new personnel chief Billy Devaney. These are two guys I'm counting on to evaluate talent well if this team is going to have any kind of future. And their first decision is to decide it's better to dump Isaac Bruce and keep Drew Bennett. (And who's the #3 WR in this offense supposed to be? Dante Hall? Marques Hagans?) Yeah, that's not the high-quality decision-making I was hoping for when these guys signed on.
Among free agent WRs, Isaac trailed only Randy Moss and Bernard Berrian in catches last year. The Rams won't replace Isaac's productivity through free agency, nor does it appear they plan to. They won't replace him quickly through the draft, and they sure as HELL won't replace him from their current roster. We hope the Rams can draft a WR who will one day approach Isaac's abilities. Would have been nice to have Isaac around to mentor in the meantime, but no. The Rams made the classless and clueless move of a classless and clueless organization, and made it even more distasteful by making themselves worse on the field in the process.
And isn't that the whole point? I'm really sick of the smartass sports pundits around here who proclaim this was a good/necessary move, "football is a business", and that fans who wouldn't have cut Isaac need to "get real" or "grow up" or that we're too sentimental to be knowledgeable. Fellas, in what universe do you improve your team by releasing your second-best receiver, especially when there is no one remotely close to his abilities waiting in the wings? Particularly when it's easy to keep him and he wants to stay here?
And don't tell me about all the legends who ended their career on other teams. Isaac Bruce isn't Joe Namath with the Rams, Franco Harris with the Seahawks, Tony Dorsett with the Broncos, ad nauseum... making those comparisons just shows me that you can't tell a player with a lot of game left in him from a player desperately trying to hang on to glory. Isaac's not like Joe Montana with the Chiefs, because Joe's old team was wise enough to have a decent replacement on hand. I'd say he's more like (classless) Junior Seau with the Patriots. Good coaches know when a player still has something left, and how much. The Rams tell those players to hit the bricks.
If the Rams are lucky, Isaac's departure will resemble Emmitt Smith's from Dallas. After they cut Emmitt in 2002, without a decent backup plan at RB, Dallas went from 5-11 to 10-6 and the playoffs. (With Quincy Carter handing off to Troy Hambrick, and Richie Anderson leading the team in receptions. Then again, the Rams don't exactly have Bill Parcells patrolling their sidelines, either.)
Cutting Isaac wasn't even a necessary cap move. The Ram defense could EASILY afford to lose any combination of low-hanging-fruit cap targets like James Hall, Corey Chavous, and LaRoi Glover more than the offense could afford to lose Isaac Bruce. (And let's not forget the D has already lost Brandon Chillar.) Isaac's cap room ended up going to a kicker the Rams didn't even know they were going to need when they cut Isaac.
Furthermore, it was transparent that Isaac would go to the rival 49ers if the Rams did cut him. He'll be nicely productive there, while Rams fans will have to hope Bennett can stop letting passes soap through his hands for interceptions long enough to help the Rams get into field goal range every now and then. Right now, I don't see much reason to believe the 49ers won't spank the Rams twice next season, which will make it awful hard for the Rams to turn around their 3-13 mark of last year.
Linehan, Zygmunt, Saunders, Devaney, ad nauseum aren't using enough of their brains if they can't see that the bitter taste in the fans' mouths from last year isn't exactly placated by deciding it's better to have Isaac Bruce on the 49ers than it is to have him here.
To Isaac, thanks for being simply the best. To the Rams, good luck to those of you who made this decision working long enough for Rams fans to ever forget it or play it down.
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