Rams Get Hammered In The Big Easy 31-13

The Rams game on Sunday remains us of some nights out drinking. Early on its all good you start with a glass of wine at dinner and then maybe head over to the bar for a couple more drinks. Then things start to go well and everyone is having a good time. This is about the time when someone decides to buy a round of shots perhaps Patron. A few shots later you find yourself out in the parking lot wondering what happened. Well we have all been there before, and the Rams were there on Sunday.

With 1:37 left in the first half of play the Rams Darian Stewart recovered a fumble by Courtney Roby on the Saints 21 yard line with the Rams trailing 14-6. After being outplayed for most of the first half the Rams had a chance to get right back into the game. After a 6 yard run by Steven Jackson Sam Bradford dropped back on 2nd and 4 and threw a ball down the left sideline to Laurent Robinson who appeared open. What Bradford did not see was Malcolm Jenkins coming over from the middle of the field to pick off his softly floating pass. 96 yards later Jenkins was in the house and the Saints were up 21-6 and for all intensive purposes this game was put on ice.

The final numbers do not tell the story since the Rams played with a lot of heart in the 4th quarter and continued to put up stats. Although losing by 18 points Sam Bradford threw for 231 yards, while Drew Brees threw for 221. St. Louis Rams also outrushed the Saints 136 to 132 yards. As I stated in my game preview this game would come down to mistakes and execution.

The Rams most likely would need to win the turnover battle and needed to be better on third down conversions to have a chance to beat the Saints. While the turnover battle was tied at three the Saints by far won the battle. The interception by Jenkins most likely cost the Rams at least 3 points and gave the Saints an instant 7 points. In the 4th quarter Bradford also threw another interception from the Saints 7 yard line. As costly as those mistakes were the Rams compounded that by allowing the Saints to start 10 of 12 on 3rd down conversions while the Rams started 0-of-7. This helped allow the Saints to jump out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter. For a team like the Rams that has a hard time scoring 20 points they can not afford to give up 14 points that quickly. The crushing blow was when Brees hit Colston on 3rd and 17 from the 17 when the Rams inexplicitly only rushed 3 and dropped 8 into coverage. The laser from Brees was just too hard for the Rams secondary to get there in time and the hole was dug.

After having a less than great game last week against the Arizona Cardinals Sam Bradford struggled again today with a QB rating of 56.3. With three games left to play Bradford is going to have to play much better to help the Rams win the NFC West. The Seattle Seahawks lost 40-21 to the San Francisco 49ers today so the Rams remain in first place, but don't look now the 49ers are once again only one game out. The Rams will host the 8-5 Kansas City next week in a huge game for both teams.

On a side note congratulations to Steven Jackson for going over 1000 yards rushing for the 6th straight year!

By Stlvinnie - http://www.stlouisramfan.com/

Rams Fall 32 Yards Short Of Paydirt

It was actually very fun today at the Edward Jones Dome as the St. Louis Rams played their best game of the season, but lost 28-23 in the end to the 9-0 New Orleans Saints. Bad clock managment forced Marc Bulger to throw up a prayer into the right corner of the end zone from the Saints 32 yard line as time expired. The prayer went unanswered and fans could only feel what could have been if the Rams could have pulled this one out. It was a great effort from the Rams who hopefully will continue to play for 60 minutes as they did today.

Steven Jackson continues to be a beast for the Rams. Jackson who touched the ball 35 times today was just the man in the first half as the teams exchanged touchdowns and the game was tied at 14 at halftime. Jackson who leads the Rams in receptions with 33 had 176 total yards in the game and a rushing TD. Jackson has rushed for over 100 yards three straight games now, as he had 131 yards today. In the first half he basically looked like he told the team to climb on his back and he would take them to the promise land.

Marc Bulger actually played ok today but he had a costly interception and his clock management on the last drive was awful. Marc continues to dump the ball off as if he is afraid to try and throw the ball down field. The two times he threw it down field to Donnie Avery both plays resulted in TDs. I am not sure at 1-8 why this team continues to dump the ball off on 3rd and long. There is also a disturbing lack of play action passes for a team that has Steven Jackson. This was the best game of he season for Marc as he completed 26 of 40 passes for 298 yards, with two TDs and one interception. It appears very obvious that Marc lacks a NFL caliber arm strength at this point in his career.

The Rams defense which battled the highest scoring team in the league continues to be very inconsistant. On one hand they held the Saints to only 21 points as the Saints scored one TD on a kickoff return to start the second half. On the other hand they did allow the Saints to roll up 420 yards of offense, and 203 yards rushing. In addition they continue to be unable to get off the field as the Saints converted 60% of their 3rd down conversions. The pass rush is also still anemic as the Rams managed only one sack on the day, by Chris Long as he bull rushed the Saints linemens ass into Brees forcing him to fall over. The Rams rarely even touched Brees. Again on the plus side the Rams seemed to hit harder than usual and they forced two interceptions and a fumble that resulted in a touchback. Overall inconsistant is still the best way to describe them.

The Rams will now have to get ready to take on Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald and the high flying Arizon Cardinals next week at the Edward Jones Dome. The Cardinals already with a two game lead in the NFC West will look to pick apart the young Rams linebackers and secondary. This will be another tough test for the Rams. Hopefully the Rams will continue to improve and give us another good game.