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nicecatchellard
As bad as it hurt all of us to see warner go bulger straight outplayed him. Warner looked like a shell of himself after the injury. We all rejoiced when he got his mojo back with arizona.
I don't think it was an apples to apples situation though. Yes, Bulger was the QB when the Rams got back on track but IMO, it was clearly because they went back to featuring Faulk and letting Bulger just play complimentary QB. Faulk was much more responsible for that 5-0 run in '02 even though Bulger put up good numbers.
Warner was his own worst enemy and Martz compounded the problems. Warner was hurt and trying to play through injuries because he, IMO, sensed that he was losing his grasp on the starting job. Which in retrospect, I think he was. More and more responsibility was being put on Warner and I think Warner was too enamored with passing too much and a variety of things were putting Warner and Martz at odds. I think Warner was audibling out of Martz plays so Martz started to call pass heavy games that were different for Warner than they were for Bulger. That Martz was setting Warner up for failure. Love Martz but I think he was vindictive enough to do that.
So, Warner was struggling through some things and Martz was not only not helping Warner by reeling him in, he was actually leaving him hung out to dry. Warner is a class act but I don't know for sure that he didn't develop an attitude of some kind and he was ostracized for whatever reason(s). Martz has been quoted as saying that he regrets how things went and how he handled them so I assume Warner wasn't too much of a jerk.
Warner wasn't playing well but much like Martz was later undermined himself, the Rams didn't give him time to heal. They didn't give him the assurance that his time away wouldn't cost him his job. More importantly, they didn't explore all avenues to solve Warner's injury.