The St. Louis Rams were hoping to end their stint alone at the bottom of the NFC West standings, but that didn't work out as they defeated 23-20 by the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday afternoon. The two teams came into the match-up just one game apart in the standings, but the Rams needed a win to knot things up and couldn't get that done.
It was a solid first half for St. Louis, with solid defense and an impressive punt return touchdown from Nick Miller, but things unraveled in the third quarter and they were unable to muster a comeback in the fourth. After taking a 10-3 lead into halftime, the Cardinals scored 17 unanswered points in the third quarter, including 7 on a punt return touchdown from Patrick Peterson, to take a 20-10 lead into the fourth quarter.
St. Louis actually managed to get the game tied up at 20, but they weren't able to finish off the comeback late in the game. Josh Brown knocked through a 48-yard field goal on the first play of the fourth quarter to cut the lead to 20-13, and Brandon Lloyd scored the game-tying touchdown on this play:
That tied the game up at 20, but the Rams proceeded to give up a 52-yard run to Beanie Wells that put Arizona in position to score the game-winning field goal. The win bumped Arizona to 4-7 on the year, while St. Louis drops to 2-9.
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