FanHouse DerekStanley

After three Rams losses, it's pretty evident 2009 is going to be a long season in St. Louis (the third straight of the variety). Monday, they received some more bad news -- that Laurent Robinson, a member of the already paper-thin receiving corps, will likely miss the remainder of the season after injuring his lower leg (both a fractured fibula and high ankle sprain) during Sunday's loss to Green Bay.

Quarterback Marc Bulger also left the game injured, but his injury isn't deemed as serious, now that he's been diagnosed with a bruised rotator cuff. Earlier Monday, some feared Bulger had a torn rotator cuff and would also miss the remainder of the season. Of course, clouding matters is that Kyle Boller came in relief of Bulger and looked far superior.

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The Rams were a significantly better team on Sunday than they had been the past three games. That team was easily worse than the Detroit Lions, but it seemed like Steven Jackson being back changed the complexion of everything, including the defense and special teams. Well, everything except the man taking snaps.

Jackson ran the ball 21 times and gained 94 yards. Josh Brown and Donnie Jones were excellent kicking and punting, and the defense held the Miami Dolphins to only 16 points. Alas, it still wasn't enough for a Rams victory. Marc Bulger -- despite good run support from Jackson and Antonio Pittman -- was simply dreadful. He connected on less than half his pass attempts and was intercepted three times -- including a game-ender on their last-gasp attempt, when he badly overthrew Derek Stanley.

A head-to-head battle between the top two draft picks was also of interest. Jake Long was squaring off against Chris Long. Considering Chris didn't record a single stat, it would appear Jake got the best of Howie's kid. It was a close matchup, though, as Chris wasn't severely abused by any means. Both have worlds of potential in this league moving forward.

How did you enjoy the Edgerrin James era? That's past tense for a reason, because in one week the torch was emphatically passed. We figured it might happen this week, but not like this. Not only did rookie Tim Hightower steal Edge's job, he was handed 22 carries to Edge's zero. That's right, not even in trash time of a blowout victory did Edge see the field. J.J. Arrington even had 11 touches.

The other main story-line was the Cardinals seizing a major lockdown of the NFC West. Had the Rams won this game, they'd have only trailed the Cards by a game ... sporting the head-to-head win and facing the Jets and Niners the next two games. This really would have been a divisional battle had the Rams held serve at home. They even stormed out of the gate with a 7-0 lead after one quarter, courtesy of an 80 yard bomb from Marc Bulger to Derek Stanley -- much to the chagrin of Torry Holt and Donnie Avery fantasy football owners.

Fresh off the news that the Rams have inked seventh-round pick, receiver Derek Stanley, comes word that the team has signed former receiver and third-round pick, corner Jonathan Wade, to a three-year deal. Wade played his first two seasons at Tennessee at receiver before switching to defense.

"Knowing how to look at defensive back from a receiver's standpoint helps out a lot," Wade said. "I've come a long way, but I have a long way to go."

Wade's still developing, obviously, at corner, but his 4.36 speed makes it easier to adjust. And it's not like he was playing low-level competition; Wade came from the highly-competitive SEC, which is about as close to the pro level as any other college conference. He piled up 110 tackles and six interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown.

The Rams will need Wade to contribute, as they have a lot of depth at corner with little solid talent. Yeah, they did finish eighth in pass defense last year, but that's deceiving. Teams tend not to pass on the Rams when they have the option of slicing up the 31st-ranked run defense to the tune of 145.4 yards per game. Wade can make a difference.