Rams Lose 23-13 to 49ers In The Last Battle At CandleStick

In the last battle between the San Francisco 49ers and St. Louis Rams at Candlestick Park, the 49ers outplayed, outmatched, and outperformed the Rams on this December day.

The Rams came into this game pulling upsets against the Colts and Bears in the previous weeks, but were snapped back to reality as the Rams success against the 49ers has apparently came to an end, at least for now.

The Rams started offense had only six plays in the entire first quarter but only found themselves down 6-0 midway through the second quarter. After four more plays by the Rams offense they were forced to punt and then came the Anquan Boldin show.

Anquan Boldin either got a parking ticket in St. Louis or had some sort of bad experience there, because in each game he has played against the Rams this season he has dominated.

Boldin finished with 9 catches for 98 yards including a 21 yard catch on third and ten to extend the drive that lead to a Frank Gore touchdown run.

Greg Zuerlein put the Rams on the board with a 43 yard field goal right before the end of the first half to out the Rams behind only 13-3 going into the second half.

After the Rams defense forced a three and out for the 49ers, both teams exchanged field goals to put the Rams behind 16-6. Down 16-6, Jeff Fisher tried a fake punt that went wrong that gave the 49ers the ball deep in Rams territory, and the 49ers took full advantage of the Rams mishap.

On the very next play Colin Kaepernick connected with Vernon Davis on a 17 yard touchdown pass to extend the lead to 23-6 and basically take the Rams out of the game.

The Rams only score came with :18 seconds left of the game on what looked like the exact same fade pass to Brian Quick that was supposed to be executed in week 8 against the Seattle Seahawks.

With the loss the Rams fall to 5-7 and any chance of a playoff run, if there ever was one, seems to be lost. The Rams were silly outplayed by the 49ers today and were not the better team.

The 49ers came out with the intention of stopping Zac Stacy and making Kellen Clemens and the Rams receivers beat them. Their plan worked as Stacy only ran for 25 yards in the first half, but got things later in the game as he finished with 72 yards on 19 carries.

Clemens also only had 218 yards passing on 19/37 completions. In the past two games, Clemens had 38 attempts combined. The 49ers stopped the Rams early, took advantage of Rams mistakes on defense, and forced Clemens to beat them through the air, which he was unable to do.

The Rams defense stopped the run well holding Gore to only 48 yards, but it was in the passing game where the Rams struggled. The Rams are lacking a lot of depth in the secondary, an area they will surely draft at come April.

Kaepernick threw for 275 yards which included 98 yards to Boldin, 82 yards to Vernon Davis, and impressively 68 yards to Michael Crabtree in his first game back.

Next week the Rams travel to the dessert to play the Cardinals, the team they beat in week one. Since going 4-1-1 in the division last season, the Rams are 1-3 in the division this season.

The Rams will be looking to get back on track come next week against a very good Cardinals team that lost to the Eagles 24-21 this week.