Laurinaitis on Rams defense: “We’re in a drought right now with taking the ball away.”

SANTA CLARA – St. Louis Rams middle linebacker James Laurinaitis spoke to Bay Area reporters on a conference call Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what he said about the Rams defense, which gave up 45 points to the New England Patriots Week 8.

Q: How do you feel about the way your defense has performed this season?

LAURINAITIS: It’s been a tale of two different groups of games. I felt early in the season we weren’t playing all on the same page, but we were keeping games close because we were able to cause turnovers. We were doing a good job taking the ball away, and then as we got to that stretch with Arizona and Miami, I thought we were playing better overall team defense, but we’re kind of in a drought right now with taking the ball away. We haven’t had an interception or a forced fumble or anything in a couple of weeks. That’s something that we’ve been harping on, is we need to find a way to create some turnovers. Obviously, the game against New England was an embarrassment, but when you play good offenses, you’ve got to find a way to get the ball back for you own offense. We just haven’t done that.

Q: You called your last game an embarrassment. Were you guys even more eager to get back to work after this Bye week?

LAURINAITIS: Yeah, I think the Bye came at a perfect time. When you have that feeling in your gut from playing a game like that, you’re just anxious to get out there to the next game. You can’t move on to the next one fast enough. That’s the way a lot of us feel. You always want to forget about the past. When you have a long Bye week to think about the same game, it kind of gets under your skin a little bit.