The Ghost(s) of QBs Past

[AZRams]

Guy in one of my FF leagues had the audacity to post something in chat to the effect of having never experienced a bad QB as a Chiefs fan of only the last 10 years or so.

Lost my mind...I decided to regale him with what bad QB-ing is all about:

Started following LA in '77.

An old and decrepit Joe Namath that doesn't even finish the season. On to Pat Haden...all of Russell Wilson's size and stature with none of the arm talent or athleticism. Vince Ferragamo...had some good moments but was always good for a major brain fart at the exact wrong moment. To his credit, steered a team with a great defense to it's first SB and gave the defending champs all they wanted for 3 1/2 quarters. Lets see...who is next...ah yes...Retread 2.0 with Colts great Bert Jones who was so shot he couldn't move or throw. Literally.

Move into the mid-80s and the likes of Jeff Kemp and Dieter Brock, a guy that could over-throw a supersonic jet ffs. Then comes Jim Everett who looked like the real deal. Sadly he runs into the 49er dynasty and the team goes nowhere and he's washed after the Phantom Sack in the '89 NFCCG. From there, it's all down hill with the likes of TJ Rubley and Tony Banks who set an NFL record for most fumbles by a QB.

But then lightning strikes with the undrafted Kurt Warner and two SBs in three years with a Lombardi. He gets driven out of town by Mad Martz and mediocrity yet again ensues with the likes of Marc Bulger, Ryan Fitzpatrick way before he knew any Fitzmagic, Kyle Boller and Jamie Martin. Finally they get a franchise guy in Sam Bradford but with no talent and a bad offense he goes nowhere until he blows out his knee in consecutive years. But have no fear, Nick Foles is here! Until he's not.

Then along comes Goff and with a real coach in a real offense, success. But only to a degree.

 

[ArkyRamsFan]

I agree with all of your comments except for the back handed jab at Marc Bulger. The truth is that Mad Martz ruined Marc Bulger's career much like he did Kurt Warner's. Fortunately for Warner he was able to escape and heal up in New York while poor Bulger was beaten to a pulp and rag dolled to the extent that he was never the same.

We'll never know how good Marc Bulger could have been had he not be stuck with a coach like Martz....

~ArkyRamsFan~

 

[John R]

The thing that haunts me regarding Rams QBs over the years is how, just when it looks like we’re finally set with a good-great quarterback, to last us years, it all falls apart without warning. I became a fan with Roman Gabriel, I was young with no perspective on life, loved the guy and thought he’d last forever. Next thing you know he’s traded to the Eagles where he plays great for a while.

Then we get John Hadl, wow! He’s even better! Long bombs to Harold Jackson, winning games right and left, then it’s over. Then ten years of WB doldrums as you so perfectly described until finally Everett. Even with that phantom sack against the hated niners, I just thought he and the team in general were a victim of bad timing (in the same division as Joe Montana and Bill Walsh-Seifert), and terrible team management.

Another decade of terrible quarterbacks until Warner, manna from heaven. On top of that we have Trent Green and every WB we draft looks fantastic. But after three short years Warner hurts his thumb and gets concussed, Martz thinks he can turn any journeyman quarterback into Warner and trades him away for peanuts. Of course Warner proves himself in Arizona making us look stupid.

For a while Bulger looked fine, till Martz killed him, then we were back in quarterback hell. I feel Bradford was better than he looked, but something always went wrong.

Finally the magic combination of McVay-Goff. A super young coach and a young talented qb soaking it up like a sponge. Things are looking good, here is our answer for ten years or more. All of the sudden the relationship falls apart, Goff gets rattled, McVay more and more gets frustrated and angry with Goff, to the point where everybody in the world knows it. By the end of that season Goff has no trade value at all, so we basically pay to have him leave and trade the moon for Stafford, but that’s ok, Brady and Rodgers are playing into their 40s. Certainly we’ve got three-four, maybe five or six good years left in Stafford. Thank God we got that one fabulous year with a ring, because the QB gods once again took it all away.

Why can’t we get a healthy career out of our quarterbacks, like Marino in Miami, Montana-Steve Young in SF, Brady, Rodgers, the list is long?

 

[Faceplant]

Yeah, been a fan since the late 70s and remember all of the washed up QB's that the wicked witch of the west brought in.....

Never forget!!

Loved Everett, but then garbage throughout the 90s.

I remember being excited for The ghost of Chris Miller and also Christal Chandelier (the first time), but neither could stay upright with the Rams. Dark years indeed....

I remember a particularly dark time when most of the fanbase (myself included) was so beaten down that we insisted on seeing Keith fucking Null starting games.

 

[madrid311]

it's been bad for sure. and here we are. undersized small in stature mediocre qbs in our future after Staff. go rams.

 

[PARAM]

Started following the Rams in '67. I prefer to remember the "good" QBs and feel pretty fortunate. Gabriel, Harris, Ferragamo, Everett, (Green), Warner, Bulger, Goff and Stafford.

 

[dieterbrock]

The truth is that Mad Martz ruined Marc Bulger's career much like he did Kurt Warner's

Conversely, there likely would have never been a Marc Bulger if not for Martz, possibly Warner too.
And I'm not really sure I'd blame Martz for the ass whooping Bulger received in Horns, Rams were 28-13 during Bulger/Martz era, 13-41 post Martz

 

[Loyal]

"Wut, no one remembers the great Jeff Kemp?" ~ @den-the-coach

That Sports Illustrated cover with Bert Jones and Georgia always looked like a Cougar and her captured prey

 

[den-the-coach]

That Sports Illustrated cover with Bert Jones and Georgia always looked like a Cougar and her captured prey

Before we knew what the term "Cougar" meant.

 

[thirteen28]

The thing that haunts me regarding Rams QBs over the years is how, just when it looks like we’re finally set with a good-great quarterback, to last us years, it all falls apart without warning.

Partly because the coaches never do what's necessary to help the QB's get over a rough spot (which happens with all of them at some point), and then the fans turn on them an run them out of town on a rail ... sometimes to see them resurrect their career elsewhere.

The team fell apart around Everett, but Jim took all the blame from fans, and then Knox came and ran his Rams career into the ground. Everett gets traded to NO, has several productive years with the Saints and sets many franchise passing records that stand until Drew Brees breaks them. Wins his last game in Anaheim, unlike the team that dumped him.

Warner comes charging out of the gate, wins a couple MVPs, takes the Rams to two Super Bowls, wins one. But Martz hangs him out to dry, allowing him to get battered, beaten and bruised. As a result, his performance predictably declines. St. Louis fans turn viciously against Warner, acting as if he's the worst thing to ever happen to the franchise, and give Martz plenty of cover. Warner gets run out of town, and after a one year stint with the NYG (where he had them above .500 and contending for the playoffs before Coughlin force feeds Eli to the team), he goes on to resurrect his career in the desert and take the Arizona Fucking Cardinals (read that twice) to the Super Bowl, and has them in position to win, only for his defense to let him down.

Goff struggles like any QB would in Jeff Fisher's Prevent Offense, but then McVay comes to town and the offense comes alive and becomes one of the best in the league. In 2018, the Rams are one of the best teams in the league, Goff bests Mahomes in the most exciting MNF in history, and overcomes a 13-point deficit in a hostile environment and leads the team to the NFC championship and the Super Bowl (with a hobbled Gurley and no Kupp). Rams get outcoached and lose the Super Bowl, and the next two years, while winning seasons, are disappointments as Gurley's knee and a mediocre OL kill our running game. Meanwhile, McVay, frustrated, tries harder and harder to fit Goff into his scheme rather than adapting his scheme to Goff's strengths and weaknesses. Predictable results ensue. Goff takes the brunt of the blame for the Rams struggles and gets run off to Detroit. Two plus years later, a guy who so many predicted would be out of the league by now has resurrected his career, and his team is at 8-3, he's playing well (notwithstanding Thanksgiving against the Pack), and has an OC who's adapted his offense to Goff's strengths. Luckily for the Rams in this scenario, there was a guy like Stafford available, but that won't always be the case.

There's a pattern there though. It's pretty easy to see. The Rams, their coaches, and the franchise in general has too little patience with QBs and are very quick to put all the blame on them when things go sideways, irrespective of what is going on with the rest of the team around them. In two of the 3 cases above, the Rams ended up worse off for that, in the third case we had the luck of a franchise QB becoming available in trade.

 

[ArkyRamsFan]

Partly because the coaches never do what's necessary to help the QB's get over a rough spot (which happens with all of them at some point), and then the fans turn on them an run them out of town on a rail ... sometimes to see them resurrect their career elsewhere.

The team fell apart around Everett, but Jim took all the blame from fans, and then Knox came and ran his Rams career into the ground. Everett gets traded to NO, has several productive years with the Saints and sets many franchise passing records that stand until Drew Brees breaks them. Wins his last game in Anaheim, unlike the team that dumped him.

Warner comes charging out of the gate, wins a couple MVPs, takes the Rams to two Super Bowls, wins one. But Martz hangs him out to dry, allowing him to get battered, beaten and bruised. As a result, his performance predictably declines. St. Louis fans turn viciously against Warner, acting as if he's the worst thing to ever happen to the franchise, and give Martz plenty of cover. Warner gets run out of town, and after a one year stint with the NYG (where he had them above .500 and contending for the playoffs before Coughlin force feeds Eli to the team), he goes on to resurrect his career in the desert and take the Arizona Fucking Cardinals (read that twice) to the Super Bowl, and has them in position to win, only for his defense to let him down.

Goff struggles like any QB would in Jeff Fisher's Prevent Offense, but then McVay comes to town and the offense comes alive and becomes one of the best in the league. In 2018, the Rams are one of the best teams in the league, Goff bests Mahomes in the most exciting MNF in history, and overcomes a 13-point deficit in a hostile environment and leads the team to the NFC championship and the Super Bowl (with a hobbled Gurley and no Kupp). Rams get outcoached and lose the Super Bowl, and the next two years, while winning seasons, are disappointments as Gurley's knee and a mediocre OL kill our running game. Meanwhile, McVay, frustrated, tries harder and harder to fit Goff into his scheme rather than adapting his scheme to Goff's strengths and weaknesses. Predictable results ensue. Goff takes the brunt of the blame for the Rams struggles and gets run off to Detroit. Two plus years later, a guy who so many predicted would be out of the league by now has resurrected his career, and his team is at 8-3, he's playing well (notwithstanding Thanksgiving against the Pack), and has an OC who's adapted his offense to Goff's strengths. Luckily for the Rams in this scenario, there was a guy like Stafford available, but that won't always be the case.

There's a pattern there though. It's pretty easy to see. The Rams, their coaches, and the franchise in general has too little patience with QBs and are very quick to put all the blame on them when things go sideways, irrespective of what is going on with the rest of the team around them. In two of the 3 cases above, the Rams ended up worse off for that, in the third case we had the luck of a franchise QB becoming available in trade.

Some excellent stuff, thirteen 28. What is your assessment of what happened to Marc Bulger? You kinda jumped from Warner to Goff so I'd like to hear your take on the Bulger years.

~ArkyRamsFan~

 

[Memento]

Hard to be worse than Kyle fucking Boller.

 

[thirteen28]

Some excellent stuff, thirteen 28. What is your assessment of what happened to Marc Bulger? You kinda jumped from Warner to Goff so I'd like to hear your take on the Bulger years.

~ArkyRamsFan~

Bulger still had some juice left after Martz was canned - he had his best year during what what Linehan's first year. But the team - especially the OL - crumbled around him and he ended up with severe battered QB syndrome. He was shot by the time the Rams moved on from him.

 

[John R]

Started following the Rams in '67. I prefer to remember the "good" QBs and feel pretty fortunate. Gabriel, Harris, Ferragamo, Everett, (Green), Warner, Bulger, Goff and Stafford.

Me too, especially Gabriel and Warner, but we seem to be cursed in our inability to keep a quarterback operating at a high level for many seasons in a row. Just when I feel confident that that position is covered for the near and far future, things fall apart.

 

[tempests]

Rams have been pretty resourceful and canny in mining QB talent over their history. Eleven different QBs who went to at least one Pro Bowl as a Ram. We're not the Bears, Lions, Browns, Cardinals, or these other sad sack franchises who can never figure it out.

Three of our guys are in the Hall and Roman Gabriel really should be. We've played in five Super Bowls and five NFL championship games before that. We've had record breaking passing offenses.

Warner probably would not have resurrected his career in St. Louis. He had to heal up and go somewhere where they could block for him and two HOF calibre receivers to throw to. By 2007-2008 the Rams were in cap hell and had one of the oldest, least talented rosters in football. Trading Goff for Stafford was the Rams doing everything in their power to bring a Super Bowl championship to LA. Goff helped end our postseason drought and Stafford helped get us to the top of the mountain. We had both those QBs play at a high level for us.

As a franchise, we've done all right.

 

[Angry Ram]

Hard to be worse than Kyle fucking Boller.

"Hold my beer." - Keith Null, West Texas A&M.

 

[Corbin]

Yeah, been a fan since the late 70s and remember all of the washed up QB's that the wicked witch of the west brought in.....

Never forget!!
View attachment 62456


Loved Everett, but then garbage throughout the 90s.

I remember being excited for The ghost of Chris Miller and also Christal Chandelier (the first time), but neither could stay upright with the Rams. Dark years indeed....

I remember a particularly dark time when most of the fanbase (myself included) was so beaten down that we insisted on seeing Keith fucking Null starting games.

View attachment 62455

Who the F is Bert Jones? lol

Wow! Always somebody I never heard of when I think I have a pretty good handle on past Rams!

 

[LARAMSinFeb.]

Bert Jones was a great QB before Georgia laid her hand on him for that photo shoot.

 

[Selassie I]

Bert Jones was a great QB before Georgia laid her hand on him for that photo shoot.

I'm sure that's not all she "laid" on him.

 

[Selassie I]

Before we knew what the term "Cougar" meant.
View attachment 62459

I think you meant whore.

We shouldn't insult the fine cougars of this world by including that scank in their ranks.