Replacing Warner Is a Snap

Disaster has struck the St. Louis Rams, so it’s on to . . . Plan A.

The Rams’ fallback is their original plan of a year ago: Trent Green at quarterback.

Green stood Sunday, only a few feet from where Kurt Warner sat talking about the broken little finger on his throwing hand after the Rams’ loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.

“You don’t want to see it happen that way,” Green said, looking toward Warner. “You never want to see a guy hurt, having been injured myself.”

The Rams know what a quarterback crisis feels like, and this doesn’t feel like one to them.

They remember the day last year when Green, slated to be their starter, went down with a knee injury during an exhibition against the San Diego Chargers.

Until then, Green had completed all but four of 32 passes--87%--for 406 yards and a 126.6 passer rating in three exhibitions.

That seeming crisis opened the door for Warner’s rise from obscurity to most valuable player of the Super Bowl.

With Warner out five to six weeks after two pins were inserted in his finger Tuesday, Coach Mike Martz simply turns to Green. He’s the quarterback Martz handpicked for his offensive system in St. Louis after Green started 14 games with the Washington Redskins when Martz was the quarterback coach there in 1998.

“Trent is not my worry. We’ll be fine with Trent,” Martz said.

Martz has other concerns, such as a defense that ranks 22nd in the NFL and a team that gave up more points in a 54-34 loss to the Chiefs than the franchise had in more than 40 years.

Then there is the injury to Marshall Faulk, the double-threat running back who probably is the one truly irreplaceable part of the Ram offense. He plans to play Sunday against San Francisco despite a bruised shoulder, though it remains to be seen how close to 100% he’ll be.

Finally, there is a patchwork offensive line that struggled with false starts against the Chiefs--and, lest it be forgotten, was partly responsible for Warner’s injury because his finger was broken on a late snap by backup center Steve Everitt.

But quarterback? No problem, the Rams insist.

Warner’s skills are phenomenal and a perfect fit for Martz’s offense--from the quickness of his release and accuracy of his passes to his ability to throw the deep ball.

But Green actually outplayed Warner against the Chiefs, completing 15 of 21 passes for 205 yards and three touchdowns with one interception after taking over in the third quarter.

Warner, somewhat out of sync from the beginning, threw two interceptions before getting hurt at the end of the first half, completing 15 of 25 passes for 185 yards with one touchdown.

“Trent is a great player and he got in there and did his job,” said Isaac Bruce, who caught two touchdown passes from Green.

Faulk is comfortable with Green too.

“It’s little things, because he’s been in the offense a lot longer,” Faulk said. “I’m sure there are things Trent does better than Kurt and Kurt does better than Trent.”

Timing probably will be the issue, because it is so important in the Rams’ system and is magnified by an offensive line that has been shuffled because of minor injuries. And until this week, Green had practiced very little with the first string.

“In this offense, because we do so much offensive shifting and movement, the starters have to be together,” Green said. “So I really haven’t had many snaps, just a few here and there.”

Green was solid but not spectacular under Martz in Washington after taking over for Gus Frerotte in 1998, setting career highs in every major statistical category, including yards (3,441) and touchdowns (23). Green threw 11 interceptions and finished with a quarterback rating of 81.8.

For anyone who has wondered how much of the Rams’ success has been Warner and how much of it is the system and the array of weapons from Faulk to Bruce to Torry Holt and Az-Zahir Hakim, the next few weeks should be interesting.

Warner says the offense is “not going to drop off one iota” going from him to Green.

The truth is it probably will drop off some, but it’s hard to imagine another team that could lose a Super Bowl MVP for an extended time and actually expect to be OK.

The only contending teams as well-equipped as the Rams to handle a quarterback injury are probably Washington, where Jeff George backs up Brad Johnson, and Buffalo, where Doug Flutie already has been called in to fill in for injured Rob Johnson.

Almost as crucial for the stability of the team, it’s hard to imagine Johnson and George, pitted against each other from the beginning, handling a similar situation with as much grace as Green and Warner have handled theirs.

Warner says he is “excited” for Green. Green, remarkably, didn’t complain that the job was declared Warner’s and not open for competition when he returned from knee surgery before this season: He understood that winning a Super Bowl made the question moot.

The Rams rewarded Warner with a seven-year $46.35-million contract that made people assume Green--under contract until 2002--probably will be traded after this season.

Green calls this situation “an opportunity” for him--perhaps an opportunity to get a chance to play somewhere next year.

They are players with similar backgrounds--Green was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Warner went to high school there--and they even look a bit alike.

Green, at 30, is a year older than Warner, but like Warner, waited a while for his chance in the NFL.

Green played at Indiana--a notch above Warner’s Northern Iowa--then started his NFL career as the Chargers’ third quarterback in 1993, inactive for all 16 games.

He didn’t play in his first NFL game until 1997 for the Redskins against Philadelphia, attempting one pass that fell incomplete.

In 1998, he got his break. In 1999, his knee injury.

Now Warner’s bad break gives him a chance again.

“This team has dealt with adversity before,” Green said.

Warner’s run at the record book is probably over for now. The Rams’ run at 16-0 is over too.

There’s plenty left to aim for.

“Last year on our Super Bowl run we had a few losses along the way too,” Green said. “The main nucleus of players is back, so everybody’s excited about getting ready for San Francisco. Division game, rivalry, going out there.

“It’s a situation in this league where to think you can run the table and win every game--it’d be nice, but it’s not that likely to happen.”

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Passing Thoughts

Trent Green’s career passing statistics:

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Year Team Comp Att Comp% Yds TD INT Rating 1997 Was 0 1 0.0 0 0 0 39.6 1998 Was 278 509 54.6 3441 23 11 81.8 2000 StL 18 25 72.0 280 4 1 131.7 TOTALS 296 535 55.3 3721 27 12 84.6

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