ST. LOUIS -- Ryan Tucker has a Superman tattoo on his right triceps. Too bad he couldn't have switched it to his left side.

"I thought I was Superman when I got this," the Rams right tackle said after Sunday's 15-14 victory over the Giants. "I think everyone thinks when they are 19 that they are Superman."

	Jessie Armstead records one of the Giants' six sacks on the afternoon.

Tucker is 26, and he felt more like Superman facing Kryptonite. First, Tucker was playing with a slightly separated left shoulder and a broken left thumb. Worse, he was facing Giants defensive end Michael Strahan, who whipped Tucker for four sacks.

"Ryan is one of those guys you love having in the trenches fighting for you," Rams guard Adam Timmerman said. "He was out there battling."

It wasn't until the Rams' final game-wining touchdown drive that the coaching staff conceded that Tucker was fighting an uphill battle against Strahan. Rod Jones came in for Tucker in the final seven minutes and did a decent job holding down the on-charging Strahan.

"We didn't do anything fancy," Strahan said. "We didn't do anything special. We just rushed. We do what we get paid to do. We had a lot of success. We hit Kurt Warner a lot and that was about it. Nothing special."

Strahan is paid $8 million a year to rush the quarterback. He's one of the most complete defensive ends in football. He entered the game with 4½ sacks. But Sunday was almost sinful.

With Tucker unable to hold him, Strahan had virtually a free path to the quarterback. Maybe one or two plays a possession, the Rams would slide a tight end to give Tucker help. The question was how many times Strahan would get to Warner.

Overall, Warner was sacked six times, hit six more and was pressured 16 times. Because the Rams disdain running the ball, they dropped back 54 times to pass and had only 16 running plays. This in a game that never had a lead bigger than seven points.

"We probably should have gotten Ryan out of there a little earlier," Rams coach Mike Martz said. "I am sure that we tried to help him a little bit with things that we were doing. Michael is a great player and we had a hard time accounting for him. He is very disruptive and he played very well."

Reviewing the refs
Earlier this week, Giants coach Jim Fassel had his car stolen when he entered a gas station store with his keys in the car. He seemed to be so upset about Gerry Austin's officiating crew that he must have felt that he had his second steal of the week.

"I don't even want to talk about the officials," Fassel said. "I don't have enough money. I don't want to talk about one call. I'm not that wealthy a man."

Fassel blew up in the first quarter when he had two penalties called on his punt team for holding or for illegal hands to the face. Rodney Williams' first punt pinned the Rams at their 8. Having to kick two more times, the Rams ended up getting the ball at the 35 in what turned out to be a field goal drive that cut the Giants lead to 7-6.

Fassel fumed when tight end Dan Campbell was called for holding when he tried to do a ricochet block on a 41-yard field goal by Morten Andersen that sailed perfectly through the uprights. Andersen, because of the penalty, tried a 51-yard attempt and missed. It was the Giants' fourth special teams penalty of the first half.

The play that won the game for the Rams was a tight interference call against safety Sam Garnes and halfback Trung Canidate in the end zone on a third-and-8.

"The nature of the infraction was that the defender pulled the receiver's shirt, had him by the shirt and took a step away from him," Austin said after the game. "The question then became was it a catchable pass. The two officials said the trajectory was low, and that it occurred early enough that you couldn't say that the player couldn't make his cut and be at the sideline to make the catch."

The Rams got the ball at the Giants' 1-yard line, and Canidate took a handoff from Jamie Martin to score the game-winning touchdown. Martin filled in one play for Kurt Warner, who had the wind knocked out of him by Strahan.

When in doubt, blame the ball
Warner's worst pass of the game came on a two-point conversion after Canidate's touchdown. The Rams sent everyone into coverage, but the pass slipped out of Warner's right hand and floated like a duck.

"The ball just slipped out of my hand," Warner said. "I think they had a kicking ball in there instead of the throwing ball. They are supposed to switch it, and I don't think they did. When I went to throw it, it just slipped out of my hand."

Archuletta steps up
Safety Adam Archuleta made the big play of the game by forcing the ball out of the hands of wide receiver Joe Jurevicius at the Rams' 31. The Rams called a zone blitz after two prevent zone plays.

Quarterback Kerry Collins rushed the throw, and Archuleta, playing with a cast covering a broken thumb, made the hit that ended the New York's chance to win the game.

"I had him coming around and they quick-snapped it and I was a little late," Archuleta said. "I had him in man. I hit him and I heard the crowd go crazy and I saw Grant Wistrom running around and it was just happiness."

John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.