By Nick Wagoner
Senior Writer

Four days before the jolly old fat man comes to town in a big red suit; the jolly old wideout will be making his return to St. Louis in a much smaller red suit.

Isaac Bruce is coming back to St. Louis on Sunday but probably not in the way most Rams fans would like to see him. After 14 years as the face of the franchise, Bruce will be joined in the Gateway City by his San Francisco 49ers teammates.

Bruce isn’t sure what to expect when he comes out of the visitor’s tunnel wearing the red and gold of the 49ers and he also isn’t sure what will happen when he makes his first catch.

Of course, the St. Louis tradition is for a chant of ‘Bruuuuuuuuuuuce’ whenever he makes a catch but that sound has a different ring in road games.

“I don’t know,” Bruce said Wednesday. “From my perspective, it’s always been ‘Boo’ when I have been on the road but who knows? Just coming back and seeing and experiencing the guys who have come back from the Rams, the applause they got, the welcome they received, guys like Mr. (Marshall) Faulk and Mr. (Kurt) Warner. They came back to town and I always found myself on that same sideline cheering and giving them their due respect.”

If there’s one thing Bruce won’t be lacking Sunday it’s respect. For all of his time in St. Louis, Bruce was a mainstay, the type of player fans loved, kids looked up to and teammates valued. 

And there will be no shortage of any of that this week. To a man, everyone associated with the team asked Wednesday is excited about Bruce’s return and said he would expect nothing less than the warmest of welcomes for this Rams icon.

“I don’t blame them (for cheering),” Rams coach Jim Haslett said. “I love Ike. I think the guy is a great competitor; he was a heck of a football player for this franchise for a long time. He still has a heck of a lot of juice left in him. He’s doing a great job for their team. I love the guy. I think the guy deserves everything he gets.”

Rams safety Oshiomogho Atogwe concurred.

“They love Isaac in St. Louis,” Atogwe said. “He is Mr. Ram or was Mr. Ram. I would believe they will greet him with a warm welcome because he did a lot for this franchise, a lot for this city and to do anything less would be kind of disappointing.”

Bruce’s return to St. Louis just so happens to coincide with a couple of prime opportunities to reach some serious NFL milestones.

Bruce built a Hall of Fame resume in St. Louis but didn’t quite get the chance to put the finishing touches on it before leaving for San Francisco after receiving his release in March.

Now in his 15th season in the league, there’s no doubting Bruce has lost a step from the player that once made the game winning catch in Super Bowl XXXIV. But Bruce remains one of the league’s most precise route runners and there is nary a player in the league who takes better care of his body than Bruce.

Bruce leads the 49ers with 766 yards on 52 catches with six touchdowns. But it’s not his season performance that could lead to history at the Edward Jones Dome.

Should Bruce accumulate six catches against the Rams, he will become just the fifth receiver in NFL history to rack up 1,000 career receptions.

“Not many guys have done it,” Bruce said. “I guess you can count on one hand the guys that have obtained that task and who have 1,000 catches playing in this league. It’s a unique number because it set the standard when the first guy did it, Mr. (Jerry) Rice. And a couple of guys came after him and it’s kind of a unique number for a guy to have 1,000 catches for a career.”

In addition, should he come up with 60 receiving yards, he would pass former Raider Tim Brown for second place all time in that category.

Beyond that, should Bruce have a really big game and come up with 125 yards in St. Louis, he’d become the second player in league history to reach the 15,000-yard mark.

Always a student of history, Bruce is well aware of how close he is to reaching those milestones in front of his beloved St. Louis fans.

“It would be a tremendous feat I am anticipating this week,” Bruce said. “And I hope we go ahead and get it out of the way.”

Considering Bruce plays for his biggest rival, Rams quarterback Marc Bulger has mixed feelings about seeing Bruce make even more history for the 49ers.

“He’s got two games left so I think he can get six in two games,” Bulger said. “I’m sure it will be a great honor for him to do it here. He’s got a great chance of it but hopefully he can put that off for a week. Three catches for 30 (yards) and do the same next week and he gets it.”

Beyond the emotions that go with reaching rarefied NFL air, Bruce will have plenty more inside him when he walks off a visiting team’s bus and into the stadium into which he injected so many memories.

“I am sure it will be different from the standpoint of walking down the visiting team’s hall, coming from the buses and seeing many of the ushers I became friends with, the doctor in the X ray room I am pretty good friends with him and standing on the sideline,” Bruce said. “And the biggest thing will be dressing in the visiting locker room. I think I have only been in that locker room twice. So that will be different.”

Most of it will indeed be different but it won’t all change. Bruce is back to working with Mike Martz, the former Rams head coach and current San Francisco offensive coordinator.

It’s a safe bet Martz will do his best to help Bruce improve on his one-catch, 20-yard outing in the teams’ previous meeting this year. And it’s an even better bet that Martz will do all he can to get Bruce the ball enough to reach any potential landmarks.

Although San Francisco emerged from that first contest with a win and has since showed signs of life, Bruce says he still has feelings for the way things in St. Louis have gone in recent seasons.

“I do,” Bruce said. “I felt like I could sit back and take some responsibility for it because I was there in that building process. I was there to help build a championship team and I was also a part of what it is right now so I still accept some ownership of it. I felt like I could have done a better job as far as getting guys who are coming behind me more ready to play and holding them more accountable to the job that was at hand. My heart goes out but I’m smart enough to know that in this league it’s somewhat of a rollercoaster. You have down years and then you turn right back around and have more prominent years.”

Not long after making that statement, Bruce was asked about the most prominent of years in St. Louis football history. More to the point, he was asked what he remembers most about his game winning catch in Super Bowl XXXIV.

The usually reserved Bruce let loose with a memory so vivid and detailed it might as well have been televised in high definition.

“I remember the fog that was kind of lingering after the halftime show,” Bruce said. “I remember seeing the intensity level of both teams skyrocket, especially after (Tennessee) Coach (Jeff) Fisher called his team together and kind of pointed across the field to look at us and thought we were celebrating a bit prematurely. I knew my opportunity was going to come in that game. I knew Coach Martz would give me a chance to make the play. I knew upon running the route, when I heard the call in the huddle, twins right, ace right, H balloon, I knew the nine route was coming to me. I made sure that I did everything I was coached to do as far as lining up right, exploding off the football and just running until I heard the whistle blow.

“As I turned around I saw the ball coming, it was kind of underthrown and I made the adjustment and as I made the adjustment and slowed down the guy covering me tried to do the same thing and ended up falling down, I guess he was tripping over the turf. When the catch was made, I saw everything in slow motion, I saw guys chasing, I saw guys blocking, I saw Az-Zahir (Hakim) blocking, I saw people in the front row of the dome eyes were like bugging out. The funny thing is I couldn’t hear anything, it was total silence. I saw people in the end zone. I saw myself on the JumboTron, I saw on the JumboTron, Orlando Pace with his big paw up in the air celebrating a touchdown before I even got there. It was interesting how everything just slowed down and the first guy I believe to make contact with me was Ricky Proehl and Torry Holt. I have a great picture of that threesome right there in the end zone and that’s what I remember from it.”

And no matter what the sight of Bruce in a 49ers uniform looks like on Sunday, it is that picture of Bruce that will forever be ingrained in the head of Rams fans everywhere.