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© St. Petersburg Times, published October 9, 2001
PONTIAC, Mich. -- For the St. Louis Rams, remaining the NFL's only unbeaten team was as simple as pitch and catch.
Kurt Warner pitched touchdowns caught by Az-Zahir Hakim, Torry Holt and Ernie Conwell. Cornerback Dre' Bly caught also, an interception off Ty Detmer he returned 93 yards for a score.
The result was an easy 35-0 victory Monday night over the winless Detroit Lions.
"I don't care at all about balance," said St. Louis coach Mike Martz, whose team ran three times in the first half and threw 21 as it took a 21-0 lead. "The dink passes were really working."
It was hard to tell if the Rams were that good or the Lions were that bad in a game that really was never in doubt after Warner threw first-half touchdowns of 15 yards to Hakim and 36 to Holt. Those scores capped drives in which Warner threw 16 straight times, almost all underneath a Detroit secondary protecting against the deep pass.
"You know Kurt, he'll get you the ball," Holt said. "You just have to make sure you get in the right spot."
For Detroit, the story was simple.
"We got zero points. Zero," coach Marty Mornhinweg said. "It was a brutal offensive game."
The Rams defense came up with big play after big play en route to the franchise's first shutout since Sept. 25, 1994, a 16-0 win over the Chiefs when the franchise was in Los Angeles.
In the second half, Mornhinweg replaced Detmer, intercepted seven times by Cleveland in Detroit's last game, with Charlie Batch, whom Detmer replaced after a 28-6 opening-week loss in Green Bay. Batch completed his first two passes, but his third was intercepted in the end zone by Dexter McCleon.
Then, after driving the Lions 55 yards to the St. Louis 8, Batch was sacked by Leonard Little and fumbled. The ball was recovered by Grant Wistrom, who returned the ball for an apparent touchdown, but the Rams were penalized for running on the field after the recovery and the touchdown was nullified.
"It just felt good to get in," said Batch, who was 11-of-16 for 113 yards. "I'm just disappointed that we didn't score."
It really didn't matter.
So easy was it for the Rams to pass on a Lions secondary minus Bryant Westbrook, recovering from a torn Achilles' tendon, that Warner was 16-of-21 for 197 yards in the first half. He finished 29-of-37 for 291 yards.
Detmer was 15-of-18 for 149 yards, a deceptive figure if there ever was one.
The Rams scored twice in the final quarter on Warner's third touchdown, a 1-yarder to Conwell, and a 6-yard run by Marshall Faulk.
"The beauty of the game is that the same thing doesn't always work," said Faulk, who ran 14 times for 71 yards and had nine catches for 80 yards. "Some days you just want to run the ball. Today throwing it was working. Stats and percentages don't matter. Points matter."