‘Monday Night Football’ 2014 live stream: How to watch 49ers vs. Rams online

Stopping Frank Gore in primetime will be a tall order for an underperforming Rams D-line.

Oct 13, 2014, 10:00 PM UTC

Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Let's be honest: The St. Louis Rams' chances to compete in the absurdly competitive NFC West snapped alongside Sam Bradford's ACL (if they were ever intact at all), so to hype up their Monday night showdown with the San Francisco 49ers as some sort of opportunity to crawl back into the divisional race would be more than a little sensational. With that said, they are still division rivals, this is still a primetime matchup and the Rams could still manage to throw a wrench into things with an upset win.

In fact, a St. Louis win wouldn't be all that shocking. After an embarrassing blowout at home to Minnesota, the Rams have, in order, beaten the admittedly awful Buccaneers, played the Cowboys to within a field goal and come up six point short of an epic comeback in Philadelphia. So it's not as if they've been getting run off the field this season.

That said, St. Louis could be in trouble against a revitalized 49ers rushing attack. San Francisco has romped for 389 on the ground over their last two games (both wins, unsurprisingly) and Frank Gore ranks fifth in the league in individual rushing. That's bad news for a Rams defense that ranks in the bottom three in rush defense.

The surprisingly poor play of the Rams' defensive line has been a major contributor to the porous run D, and to the 1-3 start as a whole. Heralded as one of the league's best units coming into the season, the Rams D-line has amazingly managed just one sack all season. Defensive end Robert Quinn, who had five sacks by himself at this point a year ago and finished second in the league with 19, has yet to bring a quarterback down in 2014. Losing Chris Long for two months to an ankle injury hasn't helped things, but the lack of production is still surprising, to say the least.

St. Louis has gotten inconsistent results from Bradford's replacement, Austin Davis, but he showed serious promise at the tail end of last week's near miss in Philly, throwing three touchdowns in a 10-minute span. Replicating that against the Niners's shutdown pass defense (fourth in passing yards allowed per game) will be difficult, but it's not impossible either.