Frustrating every Rams fan across the nation, the St. Louis Rams suffered a brutal loss to the Minnesota Vikings this past Sunday by a score of 34-6.

Plenty of things went wrong for the Rams, but sometimes it is better to look at the good before the bad. Some bright spots for the Rams lied in the fact that their running game had potential throughout the game. Zac Stacy and Benny Cunningham, both players coming off an exceptional rookie campaign, found some holes in the defense. The stat line for the running game wasn’t sexy though, with only 72 yards rushing for the team. The offensive line was poor for the most part, but there were still some opportunities for the running game to break out.

Trying to stay focused on the positives, quarterback Shaun Hill did not start off too bad. Hill began the game five for five with decent yardage. His first incompletion came on a dropped pass by a wide receiver which should have been caught. Hill left the game at half with an injury, and there was speculation that he was benched. However, coach Jeff Fisher has said multiple times that Hill is the starter and it seems logical that he stays.

Now to the negatives. There are many, but hopefully I can be brief. To put them all out there, the offensive line was despicable against the pass rush, penalties killed us, offensive turnovers allowed the Vikings to score 14 points, and the supposedly stout defense gave up a big play. There are definitely more, but these are the big ones.

The squad looked awful on Sunday, on large part because of the penalties that the Rams had. Rams wide receiver, Brian Quick, looked absolutely great other than a drive killing face mask penalty he committed. Quick, after catching a deep pass, grabbed the face mask of a defender, and was quickly penalized. This wasn’t the only mental lapse that created misfortune for the rams. Rams looked like they were in mid-season form as the committed 13 total penalties.

The biggest play of the game was when Cordarrelle Patterson, a wide receiver, took a 67 yard run to the house. The Rams defense looked pretty stupid out there, to be honest. They missed at least six opportunities to tackle him, and just couldn’t bring him down. A defense that was supposed to be top ten in the league looked silly.

There were two huge, game-changing plays during the game. The first was towards the end of the first half, Shaun Hill was flushed out of the pocket and made an off-balance throw to the sideline. The Vikings cornerback made an exceptional catch and intercepted the ball. This lead to the Vikings scoring the first touchdown of the game. Then in the second half, third string quarterback Austin Davis threw a pick six. Nothing else to it. Just bad football for the Rams this past Sunday. Hopefully we can make the game look competitive in Tampa Bay against the Buccaneers.

Side note: Rams are one of two teams not to score a touchdown in their first game.