whither ist le Rams (reviews after 4 games, including Sando)

The Rams were facing another letdown. Then their championship foundation kicked in

Nate Atkins

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7660637/2026/10/04/rams-matthew-stafford-win-eagles/?unlocked_article_code=1.GVE.JLq_.R0rf5nPk_WUc&source=emp_shared_article&smid=ta-ios-share

PHILADELPHIA — It was the middle of the third quarter and Lincoln Financial Field was soggy, bodies kept dropping, the Philadelphia Eagles crowd kept roaring and time was ticking toward another Los Angeles Rams loss.

With nothing to lean on except internal belief, Rams defenders took the field under a mantra they hold tight when the world around them shakes.

“Make them snap it one more time,” captains Quentin Lake and Kobie Turner always say.

Perhaps it’s never too late for this team to seize momentum from the crushing jaws of disappointment. Not when the track record of climbing out of holes is this entrenched, when the coach on the sideline is Sean McVay, and the man ready to take the snap is the one who keeps doing this time and again, age be damned.

After the Rams pressured Jalen Hurts to force a ball that this time couldn’t find Darius Cooper in the end zone, reigning MVP Matthew Stafford took the field at his own 2-yard line, with Eagles fans bearing down from the end zone stands behind him and with an offense that didn’t have anything sustainable going on to that point.

Two vintage Stafford fourth-quarter touchdown drives later, that same Rams defense salted the game away with ferocious sacks into the soggy turf for a 24-20 comeback victory over the Eagles.

“You’ve gotta be s—ting me,” McVay said after the game.

Rams orchestrate 4th quarter comeback to shock Eagles

If a team is going to rise through an early hole with seemingly nothing going according to plan, it has to believe in something. As Rams defenders kept taking the field for one third-down stop after another — 12 in total, out of 12 chances — that belief manifested in what could still arrive since they’ve seen it so many times before.

“It’s the trust we have in Matt,” safety Kam Kinchens said. “Just give him an opportunity. That’s what we kept saying on the sidelines: ‘Just give him an opportunity.’”

Stafford knew who would steady the ship as it rocked and swayed. From his own 2-yard line, he threw a pair of short passes to Kyren Williams and Puka Nacua. Soon, Stafford was finding Nacua for a 32-yard gain and handing off to Williams on a stretch run to the left sideline, where an extra shove from Eagles cornerback Jonathan Jones inspired something extra in the emotional heartbeat of the Rams offense.

“I hate the Eagles,” Williams said on this field nearly one year ago, right after his team blew a 26-7 lead and lost after back-to-back blocked field goals.

Williams and Nacua became the forces for Stafford to stabilize a day that was quickly turning into one of his worst. He overthrew two passes for interceptions before halftime, leading to 10 Eagles points on a day with little scoring. He couldn’t get his offense settled or into a rhythm, as penalties kept ending drives and a pass-heavy script wasn’t producing the explosive plays they searched for.

But he kept going, thanks to a defense that lived all afternoon with its back against the wall and did again after Williams’ 1-yard touchdown plunge cut the deficit to a field goal. Harrison Mevis booted the ball out of bounds to give the Eagles possession at their own 40 with 3:59 to go, and another three-and-out got the ball back to Stafford with three minutes left.

“The motivation for us this week was to be able to finish,” Lake said. “You’ve just got to have that belief.”

Kyren Williams, who finished with 147 total yards (80 rushing, 67 receiving), scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns to help lead the Rams to a comeback win over the Eagles.Emilee Chinn / Getty Images
Stafford started to spam Nacua on the final drive after Eagles star cornerback Quinyon Mitchell left the game in the third quarter with a knee injury. The two found a defensive pass interference call, and then gains of 7, 16 and 12 yards as Nacua turned back into the battering ram he was before the two-week absence temporarily threw his timing off.

Three straight Williams runs finally put the Rams on top, the final one from 7 yards out, where he took a stretch run, stiff-armed one Eagles defender, carried two more and dove to the pylon for the game-winning score.

“The play came in outside zone, and I’m like, ‘Say less,’” Williams said. “This is my opportunity to go make something happen.”

This was a moment for all of the Rams to go and make something happen. Because another narrative was forming quickly, like the rain that drizzled and the puddles that sloshed under their feet. They were the sounds of disappointment around the NFL’s latest team to be surrounded by hype and learning that a target on the back can be hard to live with.

For more than three quarters, the Rams looked like a mixture of old, hobbled and discombobulated. They had 100 yards in penalties, two Stafford interceptions and almost no momentum.

But in crunch time, they looked like the team they dreamed to be, even without Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald wrecking the game. And that checks out, too, because these Rams had the Super Bowl favorite tag before either of those former defensive players of the year even arrived.

Those expectations were based on a quarterback returning for his 18th season, fresh off of his first MVP award. It was built on Nacua and Davante Adams creating one of the league’s top wide receiver duos, an offensive line returning all of its continuity, a physical running back in Williams, one of the game’s best coaches in McVay and a deep pass rush, plus the arrival of two-time All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie to the position that held the Rams just short of the Super Bowl in January.

Where has that team been for much of the early part of this season? The glass can be half-full or half-empty, depending on where you focus.

On one hand, this team keeps struggling with penalties, some self-inflicted and others rather questionable in how they’re officiated. Nacua appeared to be interfered with on Stafford’s second interception, which quickly turned into an Eagles touchdown before halftime, their final points of the game. But the pendulum did swing back in the fourth quarter as penalties doomed Philadelphia, and a couple of those were questionable, too.

The Rams have special teams issues, from penalties to Mevis missing a field goal and kicking it out of bounds to a punt unit that allowed a 41-yard return by Britain Covey, setting up Cooper’s acrobatic touchdown catch over Lake in the second quarter.

They also face a question of how to get Nacua and Adams synced up in the same game. After Adams went off for 332 yards in two games without Nacua before this, he struggled with a pair of drops on Sunday and finished with four catches for 32 yards, though he was at his best in the fourth quarter.

But the Rams have looked like a team whose travel schedule, combined with a slew of injuries, has left them searching early in the season. This was the Rams’ third road game and second long trip in the first four, and beyond the injuries to Donald and Garrett, they were without tight ends Terrance Ferguson and Colby Parkinson, which made them ditch the three-tight end sets that opened last year’s offense up to finish No. 1 in scoring.

What they do still have is a foundation as powerful as any team.

They have a quarterback in Stafford, who, despite struggling so far with six interceptions in four games, still has the clutch gene to lead go-ahead fourth-quarter drives. Sunday presented his 40th career fourth-quarter comeback and 51st career game-winning drive.

“What I love is he doesn’t let some previous things that he could do differently affect his ability to say, ‘Let’s just be right here, right now,’” McVay said.

With the win, the Rams improve to 2-2. The Eagles lose their second straight and fall to 2-2.
They have rocks in Williams, who has 253 rushing yards and 149 receiving yards over the past three weeks; and Nacua, who turned in a typical performance in his first game back with nine catches for 125 yards. They have Adams, who, before Sunday, was off to the best three-game start to his illustrious 13-year career.

And they have a defense that can play without Donald, Garrett or even cornerback Jaylen Watson and still shut down an opponent. Sunday’s effort came against an Eagles offense missing running back Saquon Barkley, who left the game with a first-quarter hamstring injury, wide receiver DeVonta Smith and left tackle Lane Johnson. But it was also notable in many ways: The Eagles’ 172 yards were their fewest in 12 years, and their zero third-down conversions on 12 attempts was the worst rate for any team since 2020.

That defense can keep blitzing, keep making plays on the ball and keep going when it knows no deficit is too much for Stafford and this offense to take a crack at.

It’s an imperfect model. It’s not all it was supposed to be in a Super Bowl-or-bust season. But it is a foundation to believe in until Garrett and Donald are back and a real identity and ceiling can take shape.

“Lots of gutsy efforts, and I have a headache from hell right now,” McVay said. “A lot of teams would have folded in those situations.”