Las Vegas, NV (News4usonline) – The Los Angeles Rams paid a visit to Allegiant Stadium looking to snap their two-game losing skid against the Las Vegas Raiders. They achieved that goal. But they made it more difficult than perhaps it should have been.
Coming into the game, both the Rams and Raiders needed a win. The Rams had lost two straight games. The Raiders were on a three-game losing streak. The Rams prevailed with a 35-21 win.
“Proud of our group; lot of respect for that team, and they had done a great job throughout, and we knew it would be a great challenge,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said. “They’re really explosive offensively, lot of problem players on defense and [they] do a great job in the kicking game. But I thought our guys came out ready to go. I thought we had the right energy. I thought we had the right mindset. I thought we played off one another, particularly in the first half.”
The Rams did something that they hadn’t done in recent weeks; get off to a fast start, rolling to a 28-6 halftime lead.
“Outside of the first three and out offensively, I thought Matthew and the offense did a great job,” McVay added. “We were able to balance run and pass, come away with four touchdowns in the first half. Defensively, we kept getting stop after stop.”
After halftime, strange things started to happen, though. Blake Corum had a touchdown run nullified because of a penalty. The Rams had two turnovers. And that once comfortable lead got shaved down after the Raiders scored two touchdowns.
The Rams didn’t panic.While all of this was going on, the Rams defense came through with a couple of fourth down stops deep in their territory to calm down whatever momentum the Raiders were trying to ride on. McVay said those stops by the defense were big.
“Huge,” McVay said. “They were instrumental, especially the one off the sudden change, you know, where it feels like, alright we got a good 17-yard run; we turn the ball over. It’s in their area of the field. Our defense, I thought that they were great, and I think part of the competitive stamina that we’re hunting up is making them snap it one more time.”
LA needed a couple of things to happen in order to shake the taste of defeat out of their mouths. First, they needed to come to the party early.
Leading up to their Week 7 matchup against the Raiders, the Rams struggled to put points on the board in the first quarter. Over the course of their first six games, the Rams scored a grand total of 20 points in the opening period.
Those offensive woes would carry into the second period as well. The Rams needed to shake things up. And they did. The Rams scored four touchdowns in the first half to leave no doubt about the game’s outcome.
The Rams have had to play catch up against the Philadelphia Eagles (win), Buffalo Bills (loss) and Arizona Cardinals (loss), games that ended in mixed results. Instead of doing the chasing, it was the Rams who were being chased in this game.
Rams running back Kyren Williams, who rushed for 99 yards and a score on 16 carries, said the offense coming out of the gate quickly was welcomed.
“It means everything,” Williams said after the game. “It allows us to play ahead of the chains. It allows us to use our explosive guys that we got like Puka [Nacua], like Tutu [Atwell], like [Konata] Mumpfield, everybody else that was out there today. For me, it just allows us to settle down and be able to set those pads, like I said, and allow the offensive line to create a new line of scrimmage.”
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford set the tone for the game, completing 17 of 19 passes for 148 yards and three touchdowns as LA expanded their lead in the first half.
Stafford finished the game completing 23 of 29 passes for 195 yards and those three scores.
Two of those scores landed in the hands of Davis Allen. The fourth-year tight end hauled in scoring passes of three and five yards from Stafford to get LA going. Williams’ 17-yard scoring run completed the Rams scoring outburst in the first half.
The Rams scored 21 points in the second quarter to put pressure on the Raiders to try to rally for a comeback.
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com
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