Rams News: How Aaron Donald and Greg Gaines grade out during the Wildcard round

Los Angeles Rams News and Links for 1/20/22

By Blane Dydasco@BlaneDydasco Jan 20, 2022, 8:05am CST

The Los Angeles Rams were outright dominant in the Wildcard round in their 34-11 win against the Arizona Cardinals. The Cards were held to under 65 yards total rushing, less than 140 yards total passing, were shut out in the first half, and only scored 11 points in the game. While the offense had a productive, efficient, and clean game, scoring three touchdowns and committing zero turnovers, it was the defense who also stepped up and played a complete game stealing the ball away twice and turning one of those takeaways into a defensive touchdown.

The secondary gets a lot of credit for holding their own especially with two backup safeties in Terrell Burgess and Nick Scott but it was all set up by the play of the front seven.

Led by Aaron Donald, every one of the box defenders had an impact on the game but it was Donald and nose tackle Greg Gaines that PFF named as two of the three interior defensive players with the highest grade during the Wildcard round.

The Rams DLine is DOMINANT pic.twitter.com/zmRcYYVcM5
— PFF (@PFF) January 19, 2022

Against Arizona, Donald and Gaines combined for five tackles, one sack, and two hits on the quarterback. But it was their pressure and presence that had an indirect impact for example both Gaines and Donald drew the double teams during the second quarter interception touchdown that had Troy Reeder breaking free on the blitz and cornerback David Long Jr taking the pick in for the score.

A’Shawn Robinson had 67 tackles from the interior this year. And was your Rams leading tackler this past wild card weekend. Big #94 had a very underrated season and comeback year for him, statistically and physically pic.twitter.com/UuDtHEqBN6
— Chris B (@BiggameCB) January 19, 2022

Ashawn Robinson is also heating up at the right time and had seven tackles against the Cardinals. The line will have to keep the strong play going as they look ahead to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

And now for today’s links: