It’s Fitting that Marc Bulger Wears the Number Ten

I was getting tired of listening to the same go-to albums, so on the way to work one afternoon last week I decided to go for the classics. I reached for an old black Case Logic case -- the one with the “1998 Stanley Cup Finals” sticker fixed to the outside, the one that contains 48 actual CDs, none of them downloaded, none of them burned.

I settled on a record so old, it’s already being played on classic rock stations. I pulled out a little orange disc and, for the first time in at least a few years, listened to “Vs.,” the 1993 Pearl Jam album. “Vs.” was Pearl Jam’s second album, its follow-up to the breakthrough smash “Ten.”

Everybody loved Ten, especially hits such as “Even Flow,” “Alive” and “Jeremy.” But two years later Pearl Jam was still at the top of its game with “Vs.” The hits “Daughter,” “Dissident” and “Animal” got most of the attention. But 16 years later (Yes, 16 years. Marinate on that: Kids who are getting their driver’s licenses now were born the year “Vs.” dropped), I was amazed at how good the rest of the album is -- especially the tracks “Glorified G,” “Go,” “Rearviewmirror” and “Leash.”

Listening to “Vs.” made me feel a little melancholy. Pearl Jam used to be so good, so reliable. Now...blah. Why are they even still around? They peaked either in 1993 or with the 1994 album “Vitalogy.” They have suffered a rather blase, gradual decline ever since.

It’s a decline that reminds me a lot of Marc Bulger. The Rams quarterback used to be so good, so reliable. From 2002-2006, he averaged 271 yards and more than 1.5 touchdowns per game (a pace of 4,329 yards and 25 touchdowns in a 16-game season). In three seasons during that stretch, he threw for at least 3,800 yards and 21 scores, taking the reigns of the Great Show on Turf from Kurt Warner without a hitch. In fact, he had just as many 3,000-yard seasons in St. Louis as Warner did (three).

But since 2006 Bulger has declined, slowly and without much fanfare. It’s fitting that he wears the number 10. Just like Pearl Jam, he is still around, still in a prominent position, still doing the same exact thing he was doing in his prime. It’s just that nobody outside of maybe a core group of fans cares about him anymore.

Bulger has spent the last three seasons suffering injuries, tossing interceptions and throwing for small chunks of yardage to the likes of Donnie Avery and some dude named Laurent Robinson. That’s a far cry from the days when he fired away to Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce and Marshall Faulk.

In the process Bulger has become an irrelevant fantasy quarterback, not even good enough to be your backup. The numbers don’t lie: A combined 23 touchdowns and 28 picks, and 182 yards per game in 30 starts dating to the beginning of the 2007 season.

Bulger does not pass the eye test either. He consistently underthrows receivers on long passes, making me wonder if he’s not too beat-up to get it done anymore. Remind you of a certain band? One that has not released a good album since 1998’s “Yield”?

Bulger mirrors Pearl Jame in another way too. Like lead singer Eddie Vedder, he came upon his job by serendipity. Bulger was a sixth-round draft pick of the Saints in 2000. He did not throw a pass for two seasons, then ascended to No. 1 on the Rams’ depth chart when Warner suffered an injury in 2002. He permanently replaced Warner in 2003, a week after Warner fumbled six times in a season-opening loss to the Giants.

Vedder was a young club singer living in San Diego in 1990. He was surfing and working at a petroleum plant when Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament sent him a demo tape, looking for somebody to replace the lead singer of their group, who had died of a heroin overdose. Within a year they would form Pearl Jam and release “Ten.”

Some critics are saying that Vedder and the rest of Pearl Jam have rebounded with the recent release “Backspacer.” I don’t hear it, yet. Perhaps the album will grow on me and years from now I will enjoy “The Fixer” and “Got Some” much as I appreciate “Glorified G” and “Rearviewmirror” today. It’s already No. 1 on pop charts, after all.

And perhaps Bulger will rebound to post an excellent 2009 season. He has Steven Jackson to balance the offense and dodged a possible calamity when Avery’s rib injury was determined to not be too serious. The Rams used their top pick on an offensive tackle, one said to be so humble that he calls the offensive coordinator’s 12-year-old son “Mister Kyle.”

So Bulger has the potential to enjoy a resurrection concurrent with Pearl Jam. Then again, there’s also talk of Bulger missing time and being replaced in the Rams lineup. By who? By Kyle Boller. Uh oh. Talk about a career in the rear view mirror...