Marshall Faulk and Torry Holt are no longer the Greatest Show on Turf, but they are pretty darn good. Elsa/Getty Images

ST. LOUIS -- They are different, and yet so familiar, these St. Louis Rams.

Watch them for any length of time and it's easy to see that these are not the "Greatest Show on Turf'' Rams of 1999-2001, that Kurt Warner-led offensive juggernaut that could bury any opponent beneath an avalanche of points and routinely transformed games into a track meet on a football field.

Yes, these Rams can still beat you with their breathtaking offensive speed and are built for life in the fast lane. But they also have a defense that's tough enough to put away a game, too, and a running game that can grind out the vital yards when the day's outcome is hanging in the balance.

Those old Rams got labeled a finesse team, and had to live with it, for better or worse. These new Rams? Finesse has given way to a more muscular, menacing style of play, one that allows St. Louis to both slug it out with an opponent, and speed past it, all in the same game.

It just might be a lethal combination for the rest of the NFC.

"I don't know if that's necessarily the perception anymore, [that we're a finesse team],'' said Rams offensive tackle Kyle Turley, moments after St. Louis held on to beat Seattle 27-22 on Sunday at the Edward Jones Dome, wrapping up its third NFC West title in the past five years. "We've got a lot of players on this team that have worked very hard to change that.

"That perception has been also been because of the defense here, and being viewed as a one-sided football team. That we're just an offensive arsenal with a defense that's kind of lacking. And this team now is everything but that.''

And yet, let's not kid ourselves about these remodeled Rams. For all their innovations his year, against Seattle, in their season's biggest game thus far, there was much about the Rams' winning effort that we quickly recognized from those heady days gone by. St. Louis' three touchdowns against the Seahawks were scored by the Big Three of Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce and Tory Holt -- all in the first half as the Rams built a 21-9 late-second quarter lead.

And when St. Louis absolutely had to keep possession, kill some clock and tack a few more points on the board on its final drive of the game, it was Faulk, the franchise's reigning deity, who got the call on nine consecutive snaps -- eight runs and a crucial 6-yard reception on third-and-4 from the Seattle 40. The all-Faulk nine-play possession culminated in a 46-yard Jeff Wilkins field goal, and a five-point Rams lead, forcing Seattle to try and score a touchdown with just 1:37 remaining and no timeouts.

"When we need those plays, both on offense and defense, they're coming through,'' Rams quarterback Marc Bulger said. "We needed Marshall to come through for us on the last drive, and he did. We needed the defense to stop those guys and they did. It's nice to know we can rely on each other this year. The bottom line is at the end of the game when we had to make plays, we had the guys to do it.''

Faulk, Bruce and Holt paving the way for another Rams division title. I guess a good bit of the story remains the same in St. Louis after all.

"That wasn't a coincidence,'' Turley said of the Rams' three touchdown-makers against Seattle. "Those are our playmakers, and we've got to get the ball to them. So they do what they do, we do what we do, and everybody makes out good. It's a great thing to have them, man. When you've got talent like that on your side, you can't do anything but have success for the most part.''

Success is exactly what Faulk, Bruce and Holt assured against Seattle, with a healthy assist from a Rams defense that stiffened when it had to, letting the Seahawks get no closer than the St. Louis 34 as the game ended.

Of the 316 yards of total offense that the Rams produced, Faulk, Bruce and Holt were responsible for 241, a healthy 76.3 percent:

• Holt had a team-high six catches for 100 yards, including a pretty 40-yard touchdown pass from Bulger in the second quarter.

• Faulk ran 28 times for 95 yards, including a 5-yard first-quarter touchdown, also adding two catches for 13 yards.

• Bruce caught two passes for 43 yards, including an 18-yard first-quarter touchdown reception, before leaving the game midway through the second quarter with a sprained left ankle.

"That's what you've got to do when you're one of the premier players on this football team and it's a big game,'' said Holt, whose six catches gave him an NFL-best 102 for 1,518 yards this year, allowing him to join Bruce as the only Ram receiver to log a 100-reception season. "Coach is going to put it on your shoulders to step up and make plays and help this team win, and that's exactly what we did.

"The guys who needed to step up and make plays did that today, and that's a sign of a good team. That's a sign of a veteran team that understands. The young guys can sit back and watch and can learn and, hopefully, once we're out of these Rams uniforms, they can step up and do the same thing and keep the tradition going.''

Here's a pretty good tradition that St. Louis (11-3) kept going on Sunday: It has won the NFC West every other year, starting with 1999. The past two times the Rams have claimed the division ('99 and 2001) they've used that springboard to make Super Bowl runs. With a wary eye toward Philadelphia (10-3), these Rams are again starting to look as if they might be bound for Super things.

"Some of us have been here before, and some of us haven't,'' Faulk said. "And the guys who have, we've got to take responsibility for the other guys who haven't and let them know it doesn't stop here.''

St. Louis has barely been stopped since it lost 24-23 at Seattle in Week 3 -- a game in which it let a 23-10 fourth-quarter lead slip away. The Rams have won their past six games and 10 of 11 since that trip to Seattle, and their win on Sunday was their 13th consecutive at home, tying a franchise record. Since Bulger replaced Warner at quarterback, St. Louis is an eye-opening 11-2.

"We went up there earlier in the year and lost that ballgame, and we were disheartened by that,'' Holt said of his team's wake-up call in Seattle. "But with what was on the line, what was at stake [Sunday], I guess you could say it was a little personal. We knew we had to take care of business and knock those guys off in order to be champions and move forward from this point. ... We're the team right now to beat in the West, and we're going to continue to build on it.''

Holt's emergence as the league's most productive receiver makes the Rams' always potent offense more varied than normal. His 100-yard game was his ninth this season, tying Bruce's 1995 team record in that category.

"Torry has some big shoulders, and obviously he makes some big plays when we have to have them,'' Rams head coach Mike Martz said. "Right now he's on a different level than anybody else.''

In the NFC, the same might be said for these streaking Rams, who are finding more ways to win than ever. With defense and physical toughness playing such an increased role, there's a different winning formula being used in St. Louis these days.

But with Faulk, Holt and Bruce doing their thing, the Rams' weapons remain so familiar.

Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com.