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Rams cream hapless Cardinals 34-0; The good, bad and ugly

In a game that was nowhere near as close as the final score indicated, the Rams pushed their record to 2-0 by clobbering the hopeless and hapless Cardinals 34-0 in our home opener. A dominating victory marred only by the pregame groin injury that knocked Greg the Leg out of action (prognosis uncertain), the Rams defense was in complete control the entire way, holding Arizona to 5 first downs and 137 total yards, 2 first downs and 50 yards of which occurred on the very last drive of garbage time against the Rams backups. The Arizona offense crossed midfield for the first time with 30 seconds left in the game, hard to believe the Rams could be some overpowering on defense despite having only one sack (Ebukam). Todd Gurley led the way with three running touchdowns, and perhaps most impressively, the Rams knocked Arizona out of the game completely with a 4th and goal touchdown as time expired in the first half on a tremendous block by Blythe. Not suggesting that Arizona was going to win anyway, but there was a big difference between 19-0 and 11-0 at half, especially with Arizona getting the ball to start the second half. Good teams knock teams they are supposed to beat out of the game and don't let them hang around, and that is what the Rams did today.

The Good

The defense, despite the one sack by Ebukam, allowed only 5 first downs and 138 total yards. Zero separation by the Arizona wide receivers and when Fitzgerald got hurt, they had no one to get to down the field. Kudos to Fitzgerald (3-28) one of the greatest all-time Rams opponents. Johnson led the way with 7 tackles, Donald looked strong in the first half, Talib broke up a couple of passes, you rarely hear Peters name called because no one seems to want to throw the ball in the same area code where he is covering. Some nice stops in short yardage and just no rhthym at all for the Arizona offense. If we keep our starters in for that last drive, Arizona may well have finished the game with 3 first downs and under 100 yards of offense, something you don't see very often in the NFL. I get it, Arizona's offense is just terrible, but its still great to see solid tackling and absolute domination by the defense. Great to see sam shields get the INT in the fourth quarter. Arizona was only 3-12 on third down, which included conversions on the garbage time drive at the end of the game.

JOJO!!! They Egyptian may be on IR for a while, but JoJo Matson looked terrific averaging 22.2 yards per punt return on 6 tries including a 60 yarder. Quick, fast and elusive.

Three TD's and 2 two point conversions was nice for the Gurley fantasy fans (including an 11 yard td run), but he was bottled up pretty well today before leaving with cramps and giving me a near stroke when he ran into the locker room in the middle of the third quarter with the game over. He was smiling, so my first thought was maybe he had to take a dump, but he was gone for a while and...

My Top 5 Reasons Why We WON!!!!

Rams start the 2018 season 2-0......Thrashing the Cardinals in a game that was over from the outset.......

1) Defense pitches 2nd shutout in last 3 games against AZ/////just total dominance
TTL Offense Rams 432 yds Cards 137
First Downs Rams 24 Cards 5
2) JO Jo.......Gets a high mark for stepping in and just playing smart football. Nice 60 yd return and he does not hesitate. Runs North to South.
3) Cooks......Sammy who? So far he s the real deal 7 catches for 159....Woods and Kupp really round out a huge strength for Rams
4) Goff 23-32 354 yds 1TD and 1 Int The maturation of this guy has been impressive...... .
5) Hekker Again, he proves his worth. the 20 yd FG was fun to watch. His jersey will soon adorn my man cave with other Ram greats.....

Honorable mention Gurley Not a lot of yds but 3 TD's and a few 2 pt conversion......

Can the Rams be stopped? So far so very good

Some Quick Hits On The Game

Great win today. It wasn�t always perfect, and the Cardinals are a bad team, but it was a dominating performance on both sides of the ball.

Is there anything Hekker can�t do? I mean really.

Goff had a very good game, but had some hiccups and isn�t quite where he needs to be. The overthrow to Woods for a sure TD was a big miss. He needs to make those plays. I can only imagine what he�ll do when he puts it all together.

Jo Jo Natson is the real deal. Explosive, decisive, dependable, and fearless.

The LB's haven't really been tested, but so far, so good, and I like what I see.

Is there a better WR Corps in the NFL?

The DL gets all the headlines, but man, how about that secondary, from top to bottom.

Malcolm Brown was outstanding in relief of Gurley.

Speaking of Gurley, he didn�t light it up as a runner, but still showed why he�s so valuable.

Good to see the TE�s get involved for the first time and make some substantial plays.

The only real negative was Zuerlein's injury. Hope it isn't too serious.

Looking forward to the battle of LA next week....

Cards @ Rams .. Game Day Thread

Cards @ Rams .. Game Day Thread

Arizona Cardinals at Los Angeles Rams (4:05 p.m. ET, Fox)

Point spread: LAR -13 | Matchup quality: 50.2 (of 100)

Josh Weinfuss' pick: The Cardinals managed just six points on 213 yards of total offense in Week 1 against Washington. This week they'll face one of the best defenses in the league. The Rams allowed 13 points and just 95 rushing yards on Monday night. Everywhere the Cardinals' offense looks, it will find a star facing it. It's a mismatch everywhere on the field. Rams 42, Cardinals 17

Lindsey Thiry's pick: The Rams' offense scored 23 unanswered second-half points in Week 1 against Oakland. This week, Aaron Donald looks to rebound from an unsatisfactory performance, and Ndamukong Suh has it out for Sam Bradford, who was picked No. 1 in 2010 while Suh went No. 2. Rams 32, Cardinals 14

FPI win projection: LAR, 86 percent. Not only does FPI now consider the Rams the best team in football, but Los Angeles is the most likely team to win the Super Bowl (18 percent), too.

NFC West Table

W	L	T	Pct	PF	PA	Home	Away	Div	Conf	Strk
2	0	0	1.000	67	13	1-0	1-0	1-0	1-0	W2
1	1	0	0.500	46	51	1-0	0-1	0	1-1	W1
0	2	0	0.000	41	51	0	0-2	0	0-1	L2
0	2	0	0.000	6	58	0-1	0-1	0-1	0-2	L2

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