Warner, Bulger try to get their offenses going in right direction

~ The former teammates will square off again this weekend.

ST. LOUIS -- Kurt Warner remembers a time when points were easy to come by for the St. Louis Rams. But these days, with his former team scrambling for points, the Arizona quarterback said he has an even greater appreciation of the franchise's glory days.

"When you look at the playmakers they've got, the talent they've got on the offensive side of the ball, I guess it's always interesting when a team like that can't score," Warner said Wednesday.

Bulger pushed Warner out of the Rams' starting job in 2003, although the two remain close friends heading into Warner's latest reunion game against his old team on Sunday at Arizona (1-1). They speak on the telephone at least once a month, and commiserated about the Rams' lack of punch in their last conversation.

"He knows I don't know the offense, but he did tell me he's working through it," Warner said. "He's working to get to the point where it's second nature for him.

"He says he likes the philosophy and it's not the pressure on him to throw the ball 50 times a game, but he's still working to get to that comfort zone."

The Rams (1-1) have scored one touchdown in two games, and the day after Sunday's 20-13 loss at San Francisco, coach Scott Linehan said he was changing the team's culture as well as the offense and that patience was in order. Bulger echoed those thoughts Wednesday, saying no amount of playing time in the preseason would have accelerated his understanding.

"This isn't a week-to-week thing, I think, where we're just going to correct it," Bulger said. "Hopefully we can start scoring touchdowns and learn with wins and score more points, but it's going to take months, I think, to learn this."

Like Linehan, Bulger expressed no concerns publicly after the first-string offense scored no touchdowns in 11 preseason possessions. Now, he says he knew an adjustment period would be needed in Linehan's more-balanced scheme.

Running back Steven Jackson has a pair of 100-yard games after entering the season with four in his first two seasons. But the passing game has misfired repeatedly.

The Rams opened with their first victory without a touchdown since 1988, getting a franchise-record six field goals from Jeff Wilkins in an 18-10 win against the Broncos. They finally cracked the end zone in the second quarter Sunday with a 3-yard pass from Bulger to Torry Holt.

The offense appears a lot more conservative, designed to minimize turnovers, although the Rams threw a handful of deep balls Sunday that did not connect.

"You can't make a conscious effort to say you're going to run the ball and then throw the ball 50 times like we used to," Bulger said. "You can't have it both ways."

Bulger believes in Linehan, who presided over successful offenses in Miami and Minnesota before replacing pass-happy Mike Martz in St. Louis.

"His system has worked," Bulger said. "He wouldn't be a head coach if he didn't know what he was doing.

"As he knows his personnel better and we all get more familiar with him, I think that'll come because he's proven himself."

In the meantime, Bulger said he's trying not to press and live up to fans' expectations of high scores .

"You can't live in the past," he said. "We have to move on and just know that this is new and we're going to have to push and learn this and be patient all at once."

Warner can't live in the past, either. Cardinals coach Dennis Green criticized him for a pair of fumbles in last week's loss and sounds much like Bulger in describing the state of the Arizona attack. Martz described the Rams' heyday from 1999 to 2001, which produced two Super Bowl teams, as a special place in time, and Warner savors the memories.

"Even out here, with as much talent as we have, you just can't take for granted that we're going to click on all cylinders," Warner said. "To be able to accomplish what we did and keep that group together, it was special.

"Every time you go into a season and you think you can recapture that and you don't, you realize how special it was."