Rookie Jenkins Sets Record

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Janoris Jenkins has been known to make headlines for the wrong reasons. Not this time.

No NFL rookie since 1960 and no Rams rookie ever accomplished what the young St. Louis cornerback did Sunday.

Jenkins, who slipped to the second round of the draft -- the 39th pick overall -- because of off-the-field issues during his college career, returned two interceptions for touchdowns and St. Louis dominated the second half to hand the Arizona Cardinals their seventh loss in a row, 31-17.

Arizona rookie Ryan Lindley was intercepted four times in his first NFL start.

Jenkins' returns of 36 and 39 yards emphatically ended the Rams' streak of five straight games without an opponent turnover.

"A big relief," he said of ending the takeaway drought. "I felt the defense came out and we played together."

The talented defender had slipped to the second round for the Rams after he was booted from the Florida team following a pair of marijuana-related incidents and finished his career at North Alabama. Then there was his acknowledgment that he fathered four children with three women.

Just two weeks ago, he and fellow rookie Chris Givens were inactive for the game against San Francisco for violating team rules.

All that was mere history on this big day.

"What a great game by Janoris," Rams defensive end Chris Long said. "I'm really proud of him. I'm happy for him. When you get one turnover for a score, your chances of winning go up exponentially, so if you get two, I don't know what the statistic is, but when you do it two times with the same player, it's pretty awesome."

Sam Bradford had a pair of 37-yard touchdown passes -- to Lance Kendricks and Givens -- for the Rams (4-6-1), who snapped a five-game winless streak and beat Arizona (4-7) for the second time this season.

The Rams' Steven Jackson rushed for 139 yards in 24 carries.

St. Louis outscored Arizona 17-0 in the second half.

Lindley, a sixth-round draft pick out of San Diego State and the third quarterback to start for Arizona this season, completed 31 of 52 for 312 yards and no touchdowns. The interceptions, especially the two returned for scores, outweighed anything else Lindley did.

"I think you just have to understand he's a young player and he's got to understand he can't make a couple of those throws, especially the last one that was returned for a touchdown," Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt said. "That was a bad throw because he had Larry (Fitzgerald) down the sidelines. He's just got to step up and put it up."

Beanie Wells, back after missing seven games with a turf toe injury, had TD runs of 1 and 12 yards for the Cardinals.

Arizona led 17-14 at the half on Jay Feely's 32-yard field goal as the second quarter ended.

The third quarter, though, belonged to the Rams.

With St. Louis pinned at its 8-yard line, Jackson ran 46 yards, doubling his previous longest gain of the season. Two plays later, Givens beat rookie Justin Bethel down the left sideline for a 37-yard scoring reception to give the Rams their first lead, 21-17, with 9:58 left in the quarter.

The Rams threatened to extend the lead when Lindley threw right into the hands of linebacker Harvey Dahl, who returned it 38 yards to the Arizona 12. But after a holding penalty, Greg Zuerlein's 35-yard field goal try was wide left.

The Cardinals weren't so fortunate on Lindley's next bad pass. The rookie underthrew Fitzgerald by 10 yards. Jenkins caught it and in a play almost identical to his earlier TD, raced down the right sideline for the score that made it 28-17.

Dahl's interception also came when Lindley missed Fitzgerald.

"Those two where I was going to Larry, the two picks, were just real mental mistakes," Lindley said. "It was things that, it's unexplainable right now, but I made a bad play. Larry is doing the right thing. I'm just off a little bit on something, rushing something, not trusting what I'm seeing out there."

With Lindley throwing short passes over the middle, the Cardinals went 91 yards in 15 plays on their first possession, using up 8:55 of the first quarter, to go up 7-0.

But on the first play of the second quarter, Jenkins stepped in front of intended receiver LaRod Stephens-Howling, intercepted the pass and ran untouched 36 yards to the end zone to tie it at 7-7.

Danny Amendola, who played despite a foot injury that prevented him from practicing all week, made a diving grab of Bradford's 38-yard pass to the Arizona 19 on St. Louis' next possession and two runs by Jackson put the ball on the Arizona 7. But Patrick Peterson picked off Bradford's pass over the middle in the end zone to end the threat.

Lindley's 25-yard pass to Rob Housler and Andre Roberts' 13-yard run set up Wells' 12-yard scoring run that put Arizona back on top 14-7.

The Rams tied it 14-all when Bradford threw over the middle to Kendricks, who rumbled into the end zone on a 37-yard scoring play with 1:53 left in the half.

Holder takes blame for delay of game penalty

by Jim Thomas

SAN FRANCISCO • Holder Johnny Hekker said he didn’t signal for the ball from long-snapper Jake McQuaide quickly enough in overtime, causing a delay of game that wiped out what would’ve been a game-winning 53-yard field goal by Greg Zuerlein.

“I let the delay happen,” said Hekker, who also is the Rams’ punter. “Greg said he gave me the hand sign with 4 seconds (on the play clock). We’ve never had a snap, a nod to ‘hand flash,’ take more than 4 seconds.

"I’m still kind of puzzled as to how that happened."

The 'hand flash' is Hekker's signal for McQuaide to snap the ball.

The Rams had timeouts available to stop the play clock before it ran out, but coach Jeff Fisher did nothing as the clock ticked down.

Earlier in the game, Hekker kept the Rams’ offense on the field with two successful passes on fake punts, completing a 21-yarder to Rodney McLeod late in the first half, and tossing a 19-yard pass to Lance Kendricks. The pass to Kendricks kept alive a drive that set up the Rams’ final touchdown in regulation.

But Hekker also shanked a punt that traveled 13 yards in the second quarter.

'Terrible' Rams are royally beaten

LONDON • As Rams cornerback Cortland Finnegan so aptly put it: "Sometimes you're the bug, and sometimes you're the windshield."

It wasn't difficult to tell which was which Sunday night in Wembley Stadium.

The Rams got some sightseeing in during their weeklong stay in the England. Among other things, they saw the Tower of London, and the crown jewels, and Trafalgar Square. What they didn't see was that red, white, and blue truck — complete with windshield — otherwise known as the New England Patriots.

After a promising start, the Rams were outscored, outplayed and humiliated by the Patriots in a 45-7 loss before a sellout crowd of 84,004

It was a long way to go to play so poorly. The Rams, now losers of three in a row, fell to 3-5 and have an extra week to stew about it as they enter their bye before returning to action Nov. 11 at San Francisco.

"There's just days where you're going" to stink, defensive end Chris Long said. "And ... we were terrible. We were also playing a Hall of Famer. So it was a bad day to come out and be below average."

The Patriots, who pulled the future Hall of Famer — quarterback Tom Brady — with 8 minutes, 20 seconds to go in the fourth quarter, improved to 5-3. Adding insult to injury, they topped 350 yards of offense for the 17th consecutive game, breaking a record they had shared with the Greatest Show on Turf - more precisely, the 2001 Rams team they defeated in Super Bowl XXXVI.

"They got off to a good start" with the early touchdown, Brady said. "We countered and never looked back."

Things started promisingly enough for the Rams, who came out in the no-huddle after taking the opening kickoff. Just five plays into the game, quarterback Sam Bradford found wide receiver Chris Givens deep for a 50-yard touchdown pass. It marked the fifth consecutive game Givens had caught a pass of 50 yards or more, setting an NFL rookie record.

"First time we touch the ball, we go down and score -- exactly what we planned to do," Bradford said. "And then it just all felt apart from there."

The lead lasted as long as fish and chips do at lunchtime around here. Before you could say "Spygate," it was 28-7 Patriots at halftime.

"I don't know what happened," linebacker James Laurinaitis said. "A lot of things steamrolled against us. We had plays where we just dropped coverages, missed communications. At the end of the day, we're a better defense than this - than what showed."

En route to a 473-yard day on offense, Brady, tight end Rob Gronkowski and the Patriots' underrated running game couldn't be stopped, or even slowed. The Patriots scored TDs on their first five possessions, including all four series in the first half.

The Rams forgot to pack their pass rush for this trip, going sackless for the first time all season. When they rushed four, Brady had plenty of time. When they blitzed, Brady carved them up like a Thanksgiving turkey, frequently throwing to the area vacated by the blitzer.

Former Ram Brandon Lloyd caught only two passes Sunday, but both went for touchdowns as he gave rookie cornerback Janoris Jenkins fits.

Two more Brady TD tosses went to Gronkowski, who gave Rams safeties and anyone else in his path fits with eight catches for 146 yards. Gronkowski looked like a rugby player out there, bouncing off would-be tacklers for extra yardage with his 6-6, 265-pound frame.

"He's a good player," safety Quintin Mikell said. "I think him and Tom have a rapport together, and he creates certain matchup problems with his size and all that stuff. At the end of the day, if we're all doing what we're supposed to do, we can minimize that."

About the only thing that got minimized Sunday was the effectiveness of the Rams' offense. The Rams got some cheap rushing yards near the end of the game, after the Patriots had sent out their JV defense, but Thunder (Steven Jackson) & Lightning (Daryl Richardson) never really got going.

And after the big strike to Givens early, the Rams never did much to exploit one of the league's worst pass defenses.

"You look at their defense and I think they were 30th defending the pass, so we came into this game really expecting to move the ball," Bradford said. "We got beat in every phase of the game. Got dominated. I don't think there is any other way to put it."

After the Rams' opening score, they didn't make it into New England territory again until their fourth possession late in the first half, and that ended in a mini-disaster. On the first play following the 2-minute warning, Greg Zuerlein lined up for a 53-yard field goal but never got "The Leg" on the ball. Holder Johnny Hekker bobbled the snap and was forced to scramble for his life.

Hekker was tackled for a 9-yard loss with New England taking over at its 45, giving Brady a short a field for the Patriots' fourth TD drive of the day just before the half. It wasn't until the end of the third quarter, by which time the Rams were down by 31 points, that New England was forced to punt.

Just before the start of the second half, coach Jeff Fisher gathered the entire Rams team around him on the field and gave an animated speech trying to stir up the squad. So much for the impassioned plea: The Patriots needed only six plays to reach the end zone again after taking the second half kickoff.

At 35-7 and only 2½ minutes into the second half, it was only a matter of how big the shellacking would be. It turned out to be the Rams' worst defeat since a 47-7 setback late in 2009, Steve Spagnuolo's inaugural season in St. Louis, to Fisher's Tennessee Titans.

"What is required to beat a Patriot team that's playing that well on both sides of the ball is a near-perfect game, and obviously, we were unable to do that," Fisher said. "Tom got a hot hand, and had a good sense, and those guys made a lot of plays for him.

"So this will be a real test for our young football team going into the bye week coming off a disappointing loss like this. We'll find out a lot about ourselves."