(Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

Coming off an 0-3 start with a road trip to San Francisco on Sunday, the Rams had to think they at least had a few days before anything else bad could happen.

Wrong.

On Tuesday, the NFL announced starting linebacker David Vobora would be suspended for four games for violating the league's policy on performance enhancing drugs.

According to one of Vobora’s agents, Marc Lillibridge, quoted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Vobora is the victim of shoddy work at the maker of a supplement he had cleared with the NFL supplement hot line.

According to Lillibridge, Vobora went so far as to read off the ingredients list to the league representative to make sure nothing would land him in trouble. But because the maker of his supplement somehow tainted the product with something that is banned, the Rams will be without Vobora’s services for the next four games.

“He is suspended under the NFL Anabolic Steroid policy but in no way has David ever used an illegal substance,” Lillibridge was quoted as saying in the P-D article. “He took a (workout) supplement that was tainted. A highly respected toxicologist has proven this to be the case. David did everything by the book in regards to investigating this supplement before he began using this product.”

In the article, Lillibridge said he was in the process of filing a lawsuit against the company that manufactures the product, but that will do no good for a St. Louis defense already woefully thin at linebacker. As of this writing, there are only five of them on the Rams roster: James Laurinaitis, Will Witherspoon, Larry Grant, Chris Chamberlain, and Paris Lenon.

Maybe St. Louis will make a move to bring back Quinton Culberson, who has already been released twice in the past month. Maybe they beg Chris Draft to come back. But the reality is that no matter what Billy Devaney comes up with in his woefully empty bag of tricks, the Rams will take the field totally unprepared to stop a 49ers team that will run it over and over again no matter what they do (witness Glen Coffee’s 25 carries for just 54 yards in a near-upset over the Vikings on Sunday).

So I guess instead of 0-3, the Rams are now 0-3 minus.

Super.

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