ST. LOUIS (Ticker) -- Emmitt Smith scored his first touchdown as a member of the Arizona Cardinals, but Lamar Gordon stole the show for the St. Louis Rams.
Gordon ran 21 times for 81 yards as the Rams steamrolled their way to a 37-13 win over the Cardinals in a battle of NFC West teams.
Filling in for Marshall Faulk, who is out at least a month with a broken left hand, Gordon made an immediate impact, capping an eight-play, 46-yard game-opening drive with a three-yard touchdown run.
"I thought I ran well," Gordon said. "I was getting in the groove and the line was playing well. I was really working on waiting, seeing the hole and exploding through it. I wanted to work on making people miss and bursting through the hole. It felt good."
The Rams (2-2) also scored on their next two drives as Dane Looker caught a six-yard touchdown pass from Marc Bulger and Jeff Wilkins kicked a 24-yard field goal.
"We needed to win this game," Rams coach Mike Martz said. "Go into that bye week feeling real good and be back into the division race."
Isaac Bruce caught four passes for 58 yards to pass Henry Ellard for the Rams' all-time receiving record with 9,790 yards.
"He's been coaching me the last couple of years and I get a lot of insight from him on how to get open, how to run routes, things you do after the catch," Bruce said of Ellard, now a Rams assistant. "It's definitely special for him to be here and for him to be my coach."
Torry Holt was the Rams' top receiver in the game with 12 catches for 133 yards. Bulger completed 28-of-42 for 272 yards and two touchdowns with an interception.
Cardinals quarterback Jeff Blake had significantly less impressive numbers, completing 10-of-17 passes for 88 yards.
Smith's touchdown, a one-yard run on 4th-and-goal with 36 seconds left in the second quarter, pulled the Cardinals (1-3) within 17-7, and Josh Scobey's 100-yard kickoff return got them as close as 23-13.
"I just saw the guys making great blocks and cut off them," Scobey said. "I got out to the front and saw the kicker and from there on used my speed. I haven't seen that much daylight since college. It felt really good."
The Cardinals upset the Green Bay Packers, 20-13, last week.
Arizona safety Dexter Jackson intercepted a pass by Bulger at the goal line as time was running down in the first half, and was primed for a long return until he fumbled at the 35. St. Louis recovered, and Wilkins kicked a 53-yard field goal as the first half ended to put the Rams up 20-7.
There were some positives for the Cardinals, though. Wide receiver Anquan Boldin continued his torrid pace by setting a rookie record with 463 yards in his first four games. He had seven catches for 86 yards.
"Setting the record is the last thing on my mind," Boldin said. "We just have to come back and work harder. We have to put this behind us. We can't dwell on this. We have to put this loss behind us and go out and do what we have to do."
A somewhat more dubious highlight for Arizona was Scobey's franchise record 252 yards on kickoff returns. Part of the reason that Scobey was able to set the record, though, was that the Cardinals received seven kickoffs.
"I'm tired of having so many balls to return," said Cardinals coach Dave McGinnis. "I'll be damned if I want to return six, seven, eight kickoffs a game. What the hell is that?"
Another dubious achievement for the Cardinals was that Scott Player averaged 52 yards on his six punts.
