It's over

With Rams on a roll, everyone else is playing for second

ST. LOUIS -- Let's just give it to 'em. Right now. Can we? No more delusions. No more delays. I mean, would anybody mind? Let's just admit the obvious. Everybody else in the NFL is playing for second place, and has been for the last couple months.

Somebody notify the other three teams still alive in the playoffs. We'll alert the league. Let's just say Super Bowl in two weeks, with the St. Louis victory parade to follow. Confetti is optional.

And to think that the poor NFL went to all that trouble to move that pesky car dealers convention.

On Sunday, the Rams played a game with which we are not familiar. They scored at will, dominated a quality playoff opponent and put to rest any questions about the depth of their hunger to again rule the NFL. Their embarrassment of riches was profound.

But enough about their defense. Lest we forget, the Rams can play a little offense, too. Just check out the final score in Sunday's NFC divisional playoff: St. Louis offense 24, St. Louis defense 21, Green Bay Packers 17.

Add it up ladies and gentlemen and you have your Super Bowl XXXVI winner. It's just a matter of the paperwork being filed.

"We have one of the great offenses in the history of the NFL," Rams defensive lineman Chidi Ahanotu said. "So, of course, any defense is going to have to play second fiddle to that. All we want is for people to recognize that other great teams in NFL history were recognized for having great offenses and great defenses. Those San Francisco teams, for one.

"We weren't foaming-at-the-mouth mad. But we felt like we shut down some of the league's best offenses this year and still we got no recognition. But I've told the guys, we keep doing this, and we'll get our due."

They'll get more than their due. They'll get to hold that shiny silver trophy that the NFL gives out every postseason. The one with the big football on top.

This is how you can tell the rest of the league is in some deep trouble in regards to these Rams: In their biggest test of the season, against the most talented opponent they've faced, St. Louis' defense overshadowed its otherworldly offense. By a midwestern mile.

Wait over there, Kurt Warner. We'll get to you.

How good was the almost totally rebuilt and rampaging Rams D? It turned the game's most preeminent quarterback of the past decade into Ty Detmer. A walking, talking ball machine. All that was missing was those spinning white tires and the electrical cord. Green Bay's Brett Favre threw an NFL individual playoff-record-tying six interceptions. Six. And it could have been worse.

"Nothing's inconceivable," deadpanned Favre afterward. "I could have thrown eight if I got the ball back. I can't even remember the second one, or the third, fourth, fifth or sixth. They all seemed to run together."

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Eight happens to be the total number of turnovers that the Rams defense forced against Green Bay. St. Louis returned an NFL postseason record three interceptions for touchdowns, with cornerback Aeneas Williams setting another league playoff record with two. Favre's six picks were the most by a quarterback in a playoff game since Norm Van Brocklin gave away a half-dozen in 1955.

All of which begs the question: Is there still time to change my MVP vote? I was one of the five media members to bypass the winning Warner in favor of Favre, who finished third. Who knew?

"We as a defense can go in a house, break in, take the goods and get out with everything without anyone knowing we were there," said Williams, in describing the unsung nature of the Rams' defense.

Maybe for not much longer. St. Louis defenders are going to have a hard time playing the no-respect angle from here on out. Not that that stopped hyper-sensitive Rams head coach Mike Martz, who openly seethed at the perceived slap his defense received from the national media last week. Transparent as it was in terms of being used for motivational purposes.

"I think it was the best defensive performance I've ever seen, and that I've ever been a part of, at any level," Martz said. "The defense felt like it had been called out by the national media and humiliated by some of the comments ... that this game was going to be some sort of scoring race, and that they couldn't stop anybody and [the Packers] were going to score and score and score.

"I think somebody said it was going to be 45-40. This is a great defense. They have pride. Like I told you, they were called out. There was an upset group of men here all week long. They were humiliated and they responded."

Whatever. All we know is this: The Rams' offense totaled a season-low 292 yards, racked up a paltry 13 first downs, was 3-of-12 on third down (25 percent) and still St. Louis won by four touchdowns. With more than half of the third quarter remaining, the Rams were up 38-10 and ready to put in the jayvees.

Even Warner, nursing a back that went into mild spasms in the first quarter and a voice that went unused last week due to a throat bruise, was a pedestrian (for him) 18-of-30 for 216 yards and two touchdowns. Warner made his usual bevy of pinpoint throws, but Favre wound up tossing more touchdowns to Rams than he did.

"We heard all the trash talk about us," said Rams first-year defensive coordinator Lovie Smith, of last week's predictions of a St. Louis-Green Bay scoring-fest. "If you listened to the national media, to what TV was saying, it was going to be 85-80. That's all they heard the whole week. The 'Shootout at the OK Corral,' and all that stuff."

Indeed, all week long, previews of Sunday's game focused on the Rams' offensive speed, and how the Packers had never seen it up close and personal. On game day, it was the Rams' speed that did the Packers in. But it was St. Louis' wheels on defense that did the most damage.

Consider us newly informed. We've all seen it now, and we won't make that mistake again. The Rams can humiliate teams in multi-dimensional ways. You have to give them that.

Not to mention the Lombardi Trophy in another couple of weeks.

Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.

 

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