Studs and Duds from Rams win over the 49ers...

Studs and duds from Rams' 29-point win over 49ers

Cameron DaSilva

[theramswire.usatoday.com]

After a pair of close victories the past two weeks, the Los Angeles Rams made things look easy against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. They wiped their NFC West rivals by a score of 39-10, moving their record to 7-0.

The defense did a great job shutting down a 49ers offense that showed life last week against the Packers, while the offense did its job by scoring four touchdowns – three of which were by Todd Gurley.

With such a resounding win, it’s hard to pick the best and worst performances, but that’s exactly what we did. Here are our studs and duds from Week 7.

Studs

Aaron Donald

The 49ers had absolutely no answer for Donald. He was unstoppable from start to finish, constantly finding himself in San Francisco’s backfield. He wound up with nine tackles, four sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery, as well as five tackles for loss – stuffing the stat sheet like he hadn’t yet this season.

There’s a reason he’s the reigning Defensive Player of the Year and earned himself a $135 million contract this offseason. There may not be a more dominant player in the league than Donald, and that was on full display Sunday against the 49ers.

Cory Littleton

Littleton has gotten better each and every week, and while it may be premature to say, but he’s turning into a Pro Bowl-caliber linebacker for the Rams. He does everything well in the middle of the defense, from dropping back into coverage to coming up in run support. He’s an outstanding blitzer, too, which is part of the reason he makes these blocked punts look so easy.

He finished the game with 10 tackles, two sacks, a blocked punt and three tackles for loss. The combination of him and Mark Barron give the Rams a very formidable duo in the middle of the field, which is part of the reason their run defense has improved.

Todd Gurley

When he’s not rushing for 208 yards, he’s scoring touchdowns like no one’s business. He checked the box of the latter on Sunday, finding the end zone three times. Gurley was pulled with just over 9 minutes left in the game, but he still finished with 86 yards from scrimmage on only 19 touches.

It obviously wasn’t his most productive day from a yardage standpoint, but he was consistent in picking up chunk gains up the middle. His 14 touchdowns through seven games tied an NFL record set by Priest Holmes in 2002.

Troy Hill and Marcus Peters

There may not be a more inconsistent player on the Rams defense than Hill, but he was certainly a bright spot on Sunday. He had one interception, a pass defensed and four tackles, but it’s the stats on the other side of the equation that are most impressive.

Hill and Peters did an outstanding job locking down San Francisco’s wide receivers all game long, hardly ever allowing them any separation for C.J. Beathard to find them. In total, 49ers wideouts were targeted just 10 times, catching only four passes for 35 yards.

Duds

Rams TEs

It’s hard to find any weak links in a 39-10 win, but the Rams’ tight ends were once again almost non-existent. Gerald Everett had one catch for minus-5 yards, but it wasn’t even really a reception. It came on a jet-sweep touch pass from Jared Goff, which the 49ers snuffed out and blew up for a big loss. Everett was only targeted on one other play.

Tyler Higbee, by the same token, saw just one pass come his way, which fell incomplete. It was a pass toward the end zone, which Goff sailed a bit over the head of Higbee. It could’ve gone for a touchdown, but the throw was off target.