In what was easily the worst game of the year, the St. Louis Rams dropped to 0-4 after a 35-0 drumming by the San Francisco 49ers in Candlestick Park.  Starting off just reading some of my notes from the game, it was an evenly poor game on both sides.  Let’s get things straight – I won’t badmouth the 49ers; they outplayed the Rams easily.  But they weren’t very good on offense (I’ll get to that in the Good section) and really only pulled away in the back end of the 3rd quarter.  With that said, there are some serious issues that are preventing the Rams from being close to winning games (and I’m not talking about the obvious – Steven Jackson needs to find the endzone).  Here is the breakdown of the game in my favorite big 3 categories, and I’ll mix it up – we’ll start with Good.

The Good – Why would I start with the Good?  Well because there’s not so much of it.  The defense actually played a great game, all things considered.  They got some pressures, some sacks, gave up under 250 yards of offense and 14 points.  Very aggressive, very active, and they have heart.  The knock on the defense is that there just isn’t that one crazy guy that intimidates.  Only O.J. Atogwe intimidates, but he intimidates passing lanes.  There’s nobody in the front seven that makes you say, “Uh oh, this guy might do some damage.”  But that caveat notwithstanding, the defense kept the Rams in the game by not giving up many big plays and forcing punts and battering Shaun Hill.

Steven Jackson simply is the best person on the football field.  He continued to run hard all game long and while he hasn’t touched paydirt yet, he’s been THE offense and cannot be blamed for half-stepping or BS’ing.  He’s putting in work behind a line that hasn’t given him much help, and is the only guy showcasing his abilities week in and week out.

Some minor goods – Boller is not better than Bulger right now.  So any talk of QB controversy can be silenced.  He’s a good backup, but not THE man.  The pick he threw across the field showcased the bad side of Boller, as the game was only 14-0 at that point.

Donnie Avery is starting to regain his confidence, though why they threw to him sparingly with plays designed for him I won’t know.  Early in the game he picked up a long 1st down on a shorter throw and used his athleticism to make the play.  Hopefully that’s encouraging for a depleted and ineffective WR corps.

Really, the only good thing from this game is the defense only gave up 14 points and played aggressively.  I think I’m going to skip the “Bad,” because EVERYTHING else was ugly.

The Bad/Ugly – EVERYTHING.  I’ll start with the first way the 49ers scored.  Quincy Butler somehow isn’t alerted by Danny Amendola to get out of the way and the ball goes off of his foot, he can’t sit on it in the endzone so it’s just a safety – instead it’s a TD for the 49ers.  Then Josh Brown continues to miss Field Goals.  Then Alex Barron lines up off of the line because he was getting beat routinely – and it negates a 3rd down conversion (he was later benched).  A 12 men in the huddle penalty happened.  Boller throws a God awful decision for a pick 6 to Patrick Willis.  A fumble on a reverse (which we should have called earlier in the game) ends up leading to a TD.  The offensive line looked abysmal at times.

But what really makes me mad is the horrendous offensive playcalling.  Pat Shurmur is a first year coordinator.  He’s conservative.  But oh my God, there’s a mobile QB under center – I saw one playaction roll out.  It worked for 15 yards to Daniel Fells.  Where were the other rollouts?  How about shots downfield?  There is no creativity in the offense, Jackson continues to key it and do well but the playcalling leaves a lot to be desired.

I’m sorry for the lack of depth here, but I mean the game was ugly on both sides – it was just uglier on the Rams side, and it hasn’t been this ugly in a long time.  The Rams will not win a game unless this offense opens up a little bit more like the defense has.  And with the Vikings coming up on Sunday, the Rams cannot run this overly basic offense – the Vikings are far too talented on defense.