The Rams clinched a playoff berth to day for the champions of the NFC West. Too bad it was the other team.
Without Sam Bradford, an A.J. Feeley-led Rams team plopped and flopped their way to 157 yards of total offense, including 38 yards on 21 runs from Steven Jackson and Jerious Norwood. For those of you too lazy to break out the calculator, that's less than 1.81 yards per run.
Sadly, you shouldn't have expected anything otherwise. San Fran QB Alex Smith was steady and reliable, hitting two long TD passes on an otherwise unspectacular day. And while the Rams young defensive core played their asses off (Chris Long's 2 sacks and 3 QB hits along with James Laurinaitis' 12 tackles and a sack), defenses rarely win games for you.
In the larger scope of things, this is just a reaction of a larger issue. This team is injured, broken and mentally exhausted. While players are fighting for their coach, they don't seem to know how. It was an exercise in futility this week, and with Pittsburgh and another San Fran contest left on the schedule, I expect we'll see more of those.
In the more immediate future, just Seattle and Cincinnati stand in the way of St. Louis and Minnesota pimping their strength of schedules to fight for the second overall pick of the 2013 NFL Draft.
Yay.