Isaac Bruce

A reunion with former head coach Mike Martz might be able to help ignite the "greatest show on surf". Bruce enjoyed some of his better seasons when Martz was with the Rams and could see a return to past form. One of the main concerns with Bruce is the 49ers' question mark at quarterback. If Martz can get any kind of production from Alex Smith or Shaun Hill, Bruce could be a nice bargain towards the end of the draft.

With Drew Bennett’s arrival in St. Louis, Bruce’s role with the team – or whether he’ll even be on the team – is unclear at press time. What we do know is that at age 34, Bruce was still a highly competent receiver last year, averaging 14.8 yards per catch and 8.7 yards per target. Bruce is an excellent route runner, and he still has the speed to get downfield – he had four catches of 40-plus yards in 2006. But at 6-0, 188, Bruce lacks ideal size, and he tends to avoid contact, preferring to go down to the turf or out of bounds when catching the ball in traffic. Bruce isn’t a major red-zone threat, catching just three of 14 balls there for scores last year, two of which were on goal-line throws, coach Scott Linehan’s specialty. If Bruce winds up as a starting receiver outside of St. Louis, he’ll still have his uses in yardage heavy leagues, but banking on anything more than a few touchdowns would likely be a mistake.

Three months younger than Marvin Harrison and with just 53 less career receiving yards, Bruce will begin the 2006 season as the team’s No. 2 receiver. The good news is he won out in the competition with No. 3 wideout Kevin Curtis, who filled in nicely when Bruce went down with a turf toe injury a year ago. Bruce is also good at finding open spots in the zone, and he can go up for balls near the sideline. The bad news is he's not as explosive as he used to be, and he’s not likely to beat defenders down the field. At 6-0, 188, Bruce isn’t a physical receiver, and he tends to go down to the turf when catching balls over the middle. New coach Scott Linehan should ensure that there are plenty of targets to go around, but at Bruce’s age and with his current skill set, there’s not a lot of upside here. We don't see Bruce getting thrown to more than 6-8 times a game on average with 3-4 catches and a touchdown thrown in every 2-3 games.

Bruce stormed out of the gate in 2004 with four consecutive 100-yard games, and though he cooled off some thereafter, he still managed four more games of at least 98 yards. Bruce only got into the end zone six times, thanks in part to his diminishing deep speed. While Bruce was an effective red-zone threat – he converted five of 13 targets in that area into scores – he only managed one play of 40 yards or more, despite being targeted a team-leading 148 times, eight more than teammate Torry Holt. And Bruce also dropped eight passes, tied for 11th most in the league. The 32-year-old Bruce is still a master route runner, who can read defenses and find the soft spot in zone coverage. And he has enough quickness to beat the single coverage he often sees with Torry Holt drawing heat on the opposite side. Between Holt, the Rams speedy home playing surface and coach Mike Martz’s pass-friendly offensive schemes, Bruce plays in nearly ideal conditions, so another productive yardage season should be in the offing. Although durability was a major issue for Bruce earlier in his career, he’s missed just one regular season game to injury since 1998. Bruce was held out of the team’s June minicamp for two days due to an abnormally fast heartbeat, but was cleared to resume football activities shortly thereafter.

The 11-year vet is slowing down, failing to register a single catch over 41 yards since 2001. The Rams are now clearly Torry Holt’s team. Bruce was targeted 119 times last year with catches on 58 percent of those chances. He had about half as many red-zone catches as Holt.

If we knew Marc Bulger was going to take the majority of snaps for the Rams, we'd probably put Bruce in the top 20 -- the good reverend scored six of his seven touchdowns last year with someone other than Kurt Warner at quarterback. No matter who's throwing him the ball, however, we can't look past the fact that Bruce has clearly lost a step or two at age 30, and his dominant days are probably gone for good. He averaged a modest 13.6 yards per reception last year, his worst showing in that stat since 1994, his rookie year. Bruce is still good enough to be on your team, but he can no longer carry your receiving corps.