FanHouse Kyle Boller

According to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Rams will be without starting quarterback Marc Bulger for at least three weeks, and possibly the rest of the season. Bulger injured his knee in Sunday's loss to the visiting Arizona Cardinals. The injury is actually a fracture in the knee area, termed a tibial plateau fracture. The Rams are expecting to lose him for three-to-six weeks -- and there are only six weeks left in the season.

Kyle Boller will take the helm for the Rams. The team is 1-9, but has improved its play on both sides of the football as of late -- hanging with two of the better NFC teams in each of the past two weeks (New Orleans and Arizona). Boller appears to be a step down from Bulger, albeit a slight one.

This is what Brian Billick had in mind when he traded back into the first round of the 2003 draft to take Kyle Boller: the next Peyton Manning.

Of course, Manning never winged a football through goal posts from midfield while on one knee, which I imagine made Boller an even more attractive prospect in Billick's mind. Whatever, neither Boller nor Billick worked out in Baltimore and now one is the backup quarterback for the Rams and the other is an in-booth NFL analyst for Fox.

St. Louis will face Manning and the Colts this week, and Boller, for the first time in his career, looks like a Pro Bowl quarterback. Via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Did the injury bug hit your fantasy football team like it was a car windshield moving at 100 MPH? If so, it may be time to do some Damage Control.

Quarterback

• Michael Vick, Eagles - Vick took a hard hit to the ribs and had X-rays. The results came back negative.

• Peyton Manning, Colts - Manning has a sore knee after Sunday's win. The injury isn't serious, which is good news. Better news comes as the Colts now enter a bye week.

• Kyle Boller, Rams - Boller was knocked out of Sunday's game with a concussion. He'll have tests done on Tuesday to see when he can return to action.

• Carson Palmer, Bengals - Palmer injured his left (non-throwing hand) thumb on Sunday. the Bengals don't seem too worried about the injury.

Rush Limbaugh, radio personality, has made a handsome living out of spreading his brand of conservatism. Bart Scott is an NFL linebacker, outspoken about most things, including politics.

During the 2006 mid-term elections Scott, then with the Ravens, spoke about his political philosophy with USA Today's Skip Wood.

"We get a break by that, but then our family members are overtaxed. You know, tax cuts for the rich. Well, it's a Catch-22. Do you want to save more of your money, when you can afford to pay the taxes, or do you want your families to save more of their money, when sometimes maybe they're really being burdened? A lot of guys say, 'Now that I've got money, I'm going to have to vote Republican, but I'll go back to being a Democrat when I retire.' To me, that's just selfish."

When in doubt, play defense. That seems to be the philosophy right now at USC, which has taken an offense with nine returning starters and the nation's best offensive line and driven it into a ditch for large stretches of this season. And so it was on the road Saturday, the USC Trojans steadily outplaying the Cal Bears on the way to a 30-3 victory.

Mirroring last week's performance against Washington State, USC came out firing offensively in building a 20-0 second-quarter lead, eventually cooled, and still cruised to victory behind yet another dominating defensive performance. Strange days considering that defense was one of the best of this era last year and graduated the bulk of its talent to the NFL.

With attention spans dwindling, we forego full game-by-game previews to give you the essentials you need to know about every contest this glorious NFL weekend. We call it The Once-Over.

The Early Games

Tampa Bay (0-3) at Washington (1-2): With the Buccaneers winless this season and looking back at their final four losses to end last season, Tampa Bay hasn't won a regular season game since November 30, 2008. Add to that the fact that a new quarterback, Josh Johnson, is taking over for the Bucs and Antonio Bryant still isn't positive he'll play, and the horizon is bleak in Tampa.

Jim Zorn's days seem numbered in Washington. He lost to Detroit last week, which hadn't won since 2007. It might be the kiss of death if he drops a home game to Tampa Bay on Sunday.

Pick: Washington

It's often said that a team with two quarterbacks really doesn't have any. With that spirit in mind, FanHouse will keep you updated weekly on NFL teams facing potential quarterback controversies.

We're here every week, hoping to make some sense of quarterback issues facing teams in the NFL. Sometimes, it feels like we're picking on Eric Mangini and the Cleveland Browns. However, at 0-3, and with little reason to think the problems in the passing game are just going to disappear, the Browns again find themselves at the top of the heap.

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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Sunday Evening Wrap checks out players who increased or decreased their value during the Sunday afternoon games.

Riser of the Week: Pierre Thomas was the apple of many a fantasy owner's eye heading into the season, but he was hampered by a knee injury for the first two weeks. Sunday, he reintroduced himself to the fantasy football world -- so let's hope you held onto him if you drafted him. Thomas ran through the Buffalo defense for 126 yards on just 14 carries, scoring two touchdowns. The Saints do have two tough matchups coming (Jets and Giants), but, long-term, Pierre is going to be a solid RB2.

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