St. Louis Rams: 5 Most Impactful Players During Sunday’s 27-6 Victory

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

The St. Louis Rams picked up a major momentum-building victory on Sunday, defeating the struggling San Francisco 49ers 27-6 at the Edward Jones Dome. While the Rams weren’t spectacular, repeatedly dealing with drops and turnovers on offense while struggling significantly (like the 49ers) with penalties throughout all facets of the game, they were clearly a better team than San Francisco and came away with a fully-deserved win. After several games this year in which we’ve seen individual Rams players show flashes of being week-in, week-out impact players, we saw more of the full package on Sunday as the players seemed to really come together for more of a collective team win.

Though the team was missing anticipated starters like defensive end Chris Long, linebacker Alec Ogletree, and guard Rodger Saffold, the Rams’ depth players really stepped up and prevented the starters’ absences from being noticeable. In fact, an argument can even be made that it was the other way around, as ends William Hayes and Ethan Westbrooks, newly-minted linebacker Mark Barron, and guard Garrett Reynolds have been good enough over the past two weeks to perhaps even be considered better than the players they replaced. If the Rams can continue to exhibit the same “next man up” attitude that has propelled their St. Louis neighbors, the Cardinals and Blues, to success during 2015, they should have a good shot at a playoff berth, especially considering that their 4-3 record is the best one they’ve had this late in the season since 2006.

Though there was a host of players who delivered strong performances on Sunday, here’s a quick ranking of the Rams’ top five impact players against San Francisco:

Next: 5. Robert Quinn