Nobody in Arizona wants to recount this one.

The Rams showed us, as if we needed to be shown, that playoff games don’t have to be close games. Often, they aren’t. Of the NFL’s six wild-card weekend games, this was the fourth with a superfluous fourth quarter, with the Rams winning, 34-11, and aside from a few highly-entertaining football feats by the home team, there didn’t seem to be much point. The non-essential personnel have been sent home. Let the battle begin.

This might be the Rams’ final playoff game at SoFi Stadium for the season, or it might be the second or third.  They can reconvene for an NFC Championship Game if they win at Tampa Bay on Sunday and if San Francisco wins at Green Bay on Saturday. Both are possible. Then, of course, there’s the final reckoning at SoFi on Feb. 13.

Just like weekend winners Buffalo and Kansas City and Tampa Bay before them, the Rams have a chance to take this to the limit if they keep playing so comprehensively.

They don’t always run, but they did here, with Sony Michel bursting 35 yards on the Rams’ first play, and with Michel and Cam Akers taking it from there.

They don’t always stop the run, but the Rams held Arizona to 40 total yards in the first half and didn’t allow the Cardinals to cross the 50-yard line.

“We came out with a great look in our eyes,” Coach Sean McVay said.

Feeling cheeky after holding the Cardinals to four consecutive three-and-outs and scoring on David Long’s 3-yard interception return, the Rams unveiled such goodies as Odell Beckham’s 40-yard gadget pass to Akers, and Matthew Stafford was pristine at the quarterback position and even outran Kyler Murray, 22 yards to 6.

“Odell can do that,” McVay said. “He did that with the Giants. He can do a lot of things.”

Eric Weddle, retired for two years, started at safety and might have needed a postgame workout to boost his metabolism. Arizona didn’t get a first down until the 6:45 mark of the second quarter, when the Rams already had 21 points.

Murray was penned by the Rams’ defensive front, and things went haywire so quickly that Arizona coach Kliff Kingsbury forgot about the running game that had bedeviled the Rams here in Week 4.

“We were dominant,” defensive lineman Aaron Donald said. “We were able to make the quarterback uncomfortable. A couple of times he tried to run and we were able to run him down, and once he just slipped down, and he wound up making some bad throws because we were pressuring him. We had everybody making plays all over the field.”

In Arizona’s 37-20 win so many weeks ago, Chase Edmonds got 120 yards on 12 carries. This time, the Cardinals tried 18 runs and gained 60 yards. Murray had six carries for 39 yards in October. That did happen this season but last year. It might as well have happened before Arizona gained statehood.

Mismatches abounded. With receiver DeAndre Hopkins hurt, the Cardinals got very few wins against the Rams’ secondary. Beckham had all kinds of fun against rookie cornerback Mario Wilson.

On offense, McVay used some two tight-end looks early and basically turned loose an oft-criticized offensive line that lost Andrew Whitworth to an ankle problem on Michel’s game-opening run. The Cardinals were consumed by Donald and friends, and they only got a touchdown after Donald drew an unsportsmanlike conduct call for crimes against tackle D.J. Humphries.

The win was pretty much certified in the second quarter when Ben Skowronek downed Johnny Hekker’s punt on the Arizona 1-yard-line. From there, A.J. Green couldn’t hold Murray’s sideline pass and, on the next play, Troy Reeder squirted through on a blitz and threatened to sack Murray for a safety. Murray panicked and just tried to rid himself of the ball, and Long plucked it and scored.

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That made it 21-0, which still didn’t reflect the savagery of it all. But then the Rams scored on their first second-half possession, just to remove all hope.

“We got greedy,” outside linebacker Von Miller said. “You have to know when there’s blood in the water.”

So four playoff games get decided by an average of 20.7 points. With a compressed week, the Rams probably began thinking about Tom Brady during the fourth quarter. But they have beaten the Bucs each of the past two years and scored seven touchdowns.

“We’re very pleased with this, but it’s time to move on,” said McVay, his eyes already in a three-point stance. He saw the playoffs ahead.