It was a stunning and humbling loss for the Rams on Saturday night, but it wasn’t all bad for the defending NFC champions. While the 34-31 defeat hurt and eliminated them from playoff contention, quite a few players did have strong performances.

Here are our studs and duds from the Rams’ Week 16 loss to the 49ers.

Studs

Tyler Higbee and Robert Woods

Higbee and Woods remain Jared Goff’s top targets in the passing game. Higbee caught nine passes for 104 yards on 11 targets, while Woods racked up 117 yards on eight catches (11 targets). No other player had more than four catches or 39 yards, as Higbee and Woods were the ones open most often – specifically on designed rollouts for Goff. Both pass-catchers had great performances, just as they have in recent weeks.

Aaron Donald

Donald once again commanded double-teams on most of his pass-rush reps, which is nothing new. Still, he recorded 1.5 sacks, two quarterback hits, and one tackle for loss. His sacks came at clutch moments, too, both in the second half. Donald has a huge impact each week for the Rams defense, drawing attention away from the other pass rushers.

Dante Fowler Jr.

Fowler is earning a big payday this offseason with his play in 2019. He’s up to 11.5 sacks on the year after adding 2.5 more on Saturday night, consistently getting to Jimmy Garoppolo off the edge. His speed is evident every week that he’s on the field and if the Rams can’t re-sign him this offseason, he’s going to be missed at outside linebacker in 2020.

Jalen Ramsey

Ramsey left the game briefly with a knee injury and was considered doubtful to return. He only missed a series, though, and was back out there in short order. He said afterwards that he was playing through pain and will get an MRI on his knee, but he still had a great performance. He picked off one pass and broke up another that was intercepted by Darious Williams, creating two interceptions for the Rams defense.

On the 46-yard pass to Emmanuel Sanders on the final drive of the game, Ramsey indicated the blown coverage was on Taylor Rapp. It was a bad play regardless of who was at fault, and cost the Rams a win.

Darious Williams

Williams was making his first start with the Rams and the coaches couldn’t have expected him to play much better than he did. He picked off one pass, deflected another and was in coverage on a high throw to Deebo Samuel, playing great coverage on the in-breaking route. For a player with as little experience as he has, he stepped up in a big way.