The St. Louis Rams were forced to lean pretty heavily on their defense and special teams in last week's narrow win over the Cleveland Browns. The game was ultimately decided by a field goal that may or not have been blocked by Rams defensive end James Hall. A play from the Rams special teams on the series prior to that proved to be almost as important in wrapping up the win.
Following another three-and-out, the Rams punted to Josh Cribbs. Fortunately, they had also done some film work on Cribbs' return style, spotting the opportunity to force a turnover. Craig Dahl was in the process of making the tackle, when David Nixon raced in and stripped the ball out of Cribbs' hand. Ben Leber then recovered the fumble to give the Rams the ball on the Cleveland 27-yard line.
The offense took over, and two runs from Steven Jackson later, they were at the Cleveland 16-yard line. A sack negated Bradford's second-down pass, and on fourth-and-10, Josh Brown booted what became the game-winner.
Special teams play has improved in recent weeks for the Rams, except for that whole Patrick Peterson thing in Arizona, which says something about the overall struggles with consistency. If the offense could find any sort of rhythm, a couple more wins would be entirely possible.