INGLEWOOD, Calif. — On a day where it seemed like the Buffalo Bills defense couldn’t make a single play, edge defender Greg Rousseau‘s special teams prowess and quarterback Josh Allen‘s legs allowed the Bills to sneak out of “Monday Night Football” with a win.
Allen and the Bills outlasted the Los Angeles Rams 37-34 in overtime using a throwback offense built around downhill runs, screen passes, scrambles and heaves to tight ends absent receivers DJ Moore and Joshua Palmer.
Allen only completed four passes to receivers, but in a game with six lead changes the Bills emerged victorious behind James Cook’s 111-yard game, Allen’s 121 rushing yards.
To put the Bills’ game plan in perspective, the Rams targeted star receiver Puka Nacua more times than Allen threw total passes. And the Rams’ death-by-a-thousand-cuts offense proved efficient, with QB Matthew Stafford picking apart the depleted and maligned Bills secondary with a barrage of underneath passes.
Injuries to cornerback Christian Benford and safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson made it even tougher to slow this Rams’ passing attack late. But Allen and the Bills possession with seven minutes left in a tie game, and the small-ball offense that benefited coach Joe Brady’s bunch all evening came in handy.
The Bills drained 5:35 off the clock and plodded into the red zone for a go-ahead score with 1:39 left. Allen’s legs proved most valuable on the final possession, with scrambles of 15 yards and 21 yards. Of course, that didn’t matter as the Rams went down the field in about 90 seconds with more Stafford mastery, forcing overtime.
Both teams made calamitous mistakes in overtime, with Cook fumbling away a would-be scoring drive to start for the Bills and then Rams kicker Harrison Mevis having a would-be game-winning kick blocked by Rousseau to give the Bills another shot. Thirty-two more yards of Allen runs and the Bills set up Tyler Bass to hit the game-winning kick.
Here are the most important things to know for both teams:
Trend to watch: James Cook III fumbled two more times, including the decisive overtime fumble that ended the Bills’ scoring threat. Those were his third and fourth fumbles of the young season, coming off a 2025 campaign in which Cook fumbled six times in the regular season and once more in the playoffs.
What to make of QB performance: Without Moore or Palmer, the Bills’ passing attack was muzzled for most of the game. This isn’t much of a surprise. The same sort of thing happened in the second halves against Detroit and New England without Moore. Still, with Allen’s receivers consistently unable to pop open downfield, the QB incorporated more scrambles into his repertoire than he has since Week 2. All this made Allen seem more human. The fact the Bills played close with this Rams team without a superhuman Allen performance is encouraging, in a sideways type of way.
Stat to know: The Bills only converted two third downs on seven attempts. This was a significant departure from the past three weeks, in which the Bills converted more than 58% of their third down attempts and converted at least half of their attempts in every game.
Next game: at Las Vegas Raiders (Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET)
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Davante Adams snags the jump ball over C.J. Gardner-Johnson for a Rams TD
The Rams entered the game with the NFL’s second-worst special teams, according to ESPN Analytics.
The unit continued to struggle in Monday’s loss, allowing a 70-yard kick return to start the game (the fourth longest in the NFL this season), missing a 50-yard field goal in the first quarter and having the potential 48-yard game-winning field goal attempt blocked in overtime.
The special teams woes are nothing new to a Rams team that moved on from its kicker and long-snapper in the middle of the season and later fired its special teams coordinator after a Week 16 loss.
Along with the special teams miscues, the Rams could not get out of their own way.
In the week leading up to the Rams’ Week 5 loss to the Bills, coach Sean McVay emphasized that while Los Angeles got out of Philadelphia with a victory in Week 4, the Rams needed to “clean up” the penalties that could have cost them the game.
“The things that really chapped me that I think are a reflection of an undisciplined team are the pre-snap, the procedural things,” McVay said last Monday a week ago. “Those are the things that we can control with focus and concentration.”
But against the Bills, the penalties continued to be an issue. The Rams were called for 11 penalties for 84 yards, bringing their total for the season up to 42, which is tied for the sixth most in the NFL. Los Angeles had four false starts on Monday, which is tied for its most in a game under McVay.
The Rams entered this season as Super Bowl favorites, and while they’ve played a tough schedule so far through five weeks, if they cannot fix these “undisciplined” mistakes, it will be an uphill climb to get out of the NFC West. Los Angeles is now 2-3 this season in a division that features the 5-0 San Francisco 49ers (Los Angeles’ Week 1 opponent) and the 3-2 Seattle Seahawks.
Stat to know: Davante Adams had two red zone touchdowns, with catches of four and five yards. His fourth-quarter touchdown was his 62nd receiving touchdown inside the 10-yard line. He has the most in NFL history in both categories, according to ESPN Research, and his 87 receiving touchdowns in the red zone rank as the third most in league history.
Most surprising performance: Despite the success that Rams running back Kyren Williams has had the past two weeks, Los Angeles has insisted it believes it has two RB1s on the roster between him and Blake Corum. The 2024 third-round running back out of Michigan showed why on Monday night with 19 rushing yards and a touchdown on five carries and three catches for 53 yards.
Next game: vs. Arizona Cardinals (Sunday, 4:05 p.m. ET)
