Mike Martz replaced Kurt Warner with Marc Bulger as the Ram’s quarterback this week. They’re both excellent quarterbacks. What I find interesting, though, is that Bulger didn’t play any better than Warner this year. Yes, Warner had a terrible first half against New York. But Bulger had a terrible first half against SF — right down to a couple of fumbles because he get rid of the ball or protect it. Warner had a concussion — what was Bulger’s excuse? Both played better second halves, mostly because the offensive line remembered how to pass block.
The real problem is that while Mike Martz was an outstanding offensive coordinator, so far he’s been a poor head coach. His game day management skills are abysmal, he’s slow to adjust to what the other team is doing, he’s pass happy, and he meddles far too much in the draft (where he’s repeatedly demonstrated he’s a poor judge of talent). You get the feeling he’s so stubborn he’d rather lose his way than win anybody else’s way. Maybe he believed the press when he was hailed as a genius for his work during the Ram’s 1999 cinderella season. Just because he devised a brilliant passing game and had the players to execute it doesn’t make him evena so-so head coach. It took him six quarters of losing football this year to even bother with a running game — and that’s with Marshall Faulk in the backfield.
Perhaps the biggest difference between Bulger and Warner is that Martz coaches a better game when Bulger is QB. At least he remembers he has a pretty good running back in Faulk.
