The St. Louis Rams are toast.

With Marshall Faulk breaking his hand yesterday, any possibility of respectability was broken with it. Only two years ago, this offense (with much the same personnel) was called "The Greatest Show on Turf." In two short years, it has gone to being a below-average NFL offense. "Offensive genius" Mike Martz has engineered one of the greatest falls in NFL history. When I remember the thrill of watching that group work, and know that it is now all gone, it makes me want to cry.

There is a silly habit among sports fans to blame a team's best player for the team's struggles. Living in South Florida, I heard the constant refrain that the Dolphins' struggles were traceable to Dan Marino. Right. The best passing quarterback in NFL history--it's his fault you're not winning. Phillies fans booed Mike Schmidt through much of the time he was putting together a career as the greatest third-baseman of all time. Yeah, Mike Schmidt's your problem. I've seen much the same thing develop in St. Louis over the past year. "It's Kurt Warner's fault," the fans and know-nothing radio hosts bloviate. Right. He won the league MVP award in two of his first three seasons in the league, and then was hurt for much of last year. It's his fault you're not winning.

What these ignoramuses fail to see is that, much like with Dan Marino in Miami, Kurt Warner is the only chance you do have to win. You take him out of the lineup, and you are a strictly ordinary offense and aren't going to win anything. That was amply proved last year.

Incidentally, I'm trying really hard to believe that Mike Martz didn't intentionally leave an injured Warner, who suffered a concussion in the first quarter of the season's first game, in that game in order to have an excuse to bench him. I'm trying really hard to believe it doesn't have anything to do with Martz's blowup with Warner's wife in the press last season. I'm trying, but I'm not succeeding.