In a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicated, the 49ers beat the stuffing out of the St Louis Rams yesterday in one of those beautiful fall days that make Niner games all that much more enjoyable than the good old days of Giants games at the venerable, and nearly defunct, Stick. A game that started with a pre-game shoving match picked that theme right up with a lot of chippiness on both sides of the ball. Pushing and shoving, late hits, and a really terrible violation of Vernon Davis’s giblets was the theme of the day.

The Rams were coming off 2 big wins against what were thought of as bona-fide contenders in Indy and Chicago, but the 49ers made Kellen Clemens look like, well, Kellen Clemens. The Niners kept breakout rookies Zac Stacy and Tevon Austin completely in check. Stacy had 72 yards, and Austin had 4 catches for 25 yards, and was a non-factor returning kicks. The starting defense pitched another shutout, giving up only 2 FGs in the game, and were hitting everything in sight. WRs started getting alligator arms, which led to drops, and a Carlos Rogers pick.

The only real black mark was the fumble by Gore as the Niners were driving to put the game away. However, Jeff Fisher did us a solid and inexplicably tried a 4th quarter fake punt deep in his own territory. The Niners stopped it easily and salted the game away on the next play with the TD to VD. This was after recovering from being tackled by his (ahem) leg. The rest of the game was backups and garbage time.

All in all a good win against a decent team. As they have shown this season, the Niners can beat fair to middling teams. AZ did us a solid as well by losing to Philly, but then again, Philly suddenly is a contender for that last playoff spot on the back of Nick Foles’ golden arm. Philly has Deetroit coming to town while we of course have our big showdown with Seattle. After that, Philly has Chicago and Dallass (and the Vikes). The Niners have it pretty easy with Tampa, Atlanta and AZ.

There’s plenty of time to talk about Seattle, but let’s just see how they do against Nawlins tonight. I tell ya one thing, the Niner passing game was immediately better with Crabs in there yesterday.