I don’t know how they lost that game. Watching the 49ers celebrate after stopping the Rams on a game-deciding fourth-and-1 run Thursday night, I simply couldn’t form an explanation for how the Rams had managed to blow what should have been an easy victory over their injury-riddled division rivals. It felt like the Rams could have done whatever they wanted on offense, and a limping Mac Jones‘ only reliable target was Kendrick Bourne on the 49ers’ side. So the Rams’ 26-23 defeat looked like it would be one of the most frustrating and inexplicable losses of the entire season.

And then Sunday rolled around. Sure, there were ugly defeats, like the Giants turning the ball over five times to lose 26-14 to the previously winless Saints, the Raiders allowing the Colts to score six straight touchdowns in a 40-6 defeat and the junior varsity Ravens singlehandedly reinspiring confidence in the Texans in a 44-10 blowout. And to cap off Sunday, the Bills fell 23-20 to the Patriots. But even judged by the standard that started Week 5 on Thursday night, fans had to endure some truly monumental and heartbreaking collapses on Sunday that went beyond any of those.

Subscribe: ‘The Bill Barnwell Show’

Which one was the worst? I’m here to answer that very question. If it sounds similar to a conversation we had a couple Mondays ago, you’re not wrong. After a series of losses that must have caused televisions around the nation to shudder in fear of flying objects, though, we have to essentially run back that same topic to see whether these Week 5 losses were just a confluence of awful moments or something more significant to worry about for the losers. And I have to start with a game that transcended the rest.

Jump to:
Cardinals’ loss to the Titans
Eagles’ loss to the Broncos
Rams’ loss to the 49ers

The story: The team that doesn’t know how to win versus the team that desperately does not want to win

Let’s get this out of the way: This was the worst loss of Week 5. As someone born and raised on the East Coast during an era when the Cardinals weren’t one of the league’s better teams, I’ll admit that I don’t have a ton of personal friends who are Cardinals fans. The ones I do know had the same reaction to Sunday’s loss on social media or via text: This was the worst Cardinals loss they’d ever seen.

There have been a few agonizing ones, too, with the 24-23 defeat to the Bears on “Monday Night Football” that inspired the late Dennis Green’s famous “They are who we thought they were!” speech as perhaps the most memorable. But I can’t even chalk this one up to recency bias. Outside of losing a more important game, I really can’t imagine a more nonsensical and despairing way to lose a football game.

Let’s start with the first inexplicable play. Up 21-6 in the fourth quarter, it looked like the Cardinals were about to turn the lights out on the hapless Titans. They pulled a lineman as part of a gap scheme run on third-and-1 and didn’t even do a great job of blocking it up, but the Titans weren’t about to get in their way. Emari Demercado didn’t really need to make a cut and didn’t encounter any defenders at the first, second or third levels. On the easiest explosive run Demercado will ever have in his career, he went untouched 72 yards to the end zone.

But the ball went only 71 yards. Just as L’Jarius Sneed caught up at the goal line, Demercado relaxed and let the ball fall to the ground. He saw it bounce on the ground in front of him but simply decided to let it roll through the back of the end zone for a touchback. Sneed knew. Demercado began to celebrate. If he didn’t know, he was about to find out.

play

Emari Demercado drops the ball and wipes away a 70-yard Cardinals TD

Emari Demercado drops the ball before crossing the goal line, wiping away what would have been a 70-yard touchdown.

You don’t need me to tell you — or tell NFL players — that they shouldn’t run the risk of dumping the ball out of their hands anywhere close to the goal line. There’s no benefit. Holding the ball for an extra beat or two and letting it go then looks just as cool. This was going to be the fifth and longest touchdown of Demercado’s career. And given that the Titans had yet to score 21 points in a game all season before Sunday, going up 27-6 with just under 13 minutes of regulation left was going to end the contest.

What makes this even more painful, of course, is that Demercado was surely reminded of this last week, when Indianapolis receiver Adonai Mitchell dropped a ball just before the goal line in what ended up turning into a 27-20 Colts loss to the Rams. NFL players don’t get to watch a lot of random football during the season — they’re working on Sundays and it’s hard enough to prepare for the team you’re actually playing — but Demercado even played on Thursday night last week. I know his coaches were watching what was happening on Sunday, and I’m sure every single staff around the NFL saw the Mitchell disaster and reminded their players to not do the one simple thing that can cost you six points as you’re streaking to the end zone. Demercado doing it anyway is unconscionable.

That’s a disaster, but it felt more like an unnecessary mistake than a critical, game-altering failure in the moment, because the Titans had been absolutely hopeless. They had racked up a total of 120 net yards across their 10 prior drives, including three consecutive three-and-outs to start the third quarter. They were entering their eighth consecutive quarter without a touchdown or even as much as a trip inside the red zone.

And so, of course, Cam Ward and the Titans morphed into the 2023 Dolphins. Ward drove the Titans 80 yards in six plays, hitting Calvin Ridley for a 47-yard completion on third-and-10 along the way. The Titans scored their first touchdown since Week 3, but when coach Brian Callahan curiously decided not to go for the 2-point conversion, Joey Slye promptly missed the extra point. Arizona still held a 21-12 lead.

After a Cardinals three-and-out, the Titans drove downfield, at which point something even wilder happened. Facing a third-and-2 on the Arizona 20-yard line, Ward scrambled and had a pass tipped at the line, which fell into the arms of Dadrion Taylor-Demerson. With 4:53 to go in a two-possession game, that’s probably something close to a wrap on the Titans if Taylor-Demerson simply goes down and is touched by a Titans player.

Instead, something happened that would even seem outlandish in a movie where a dog is one of the team’s star players. Taylor-Demerson went down under his own power and fumbled. Kei’Trel Clark, the first player to see the ball on the ground, couldn’t stop and kicked it forward toward his own end zone. Despite the fact that there were three Cardinals hovering directly over the football like they were roasting s’mores, the ball somehow squeezed out of their grasp and into the end zone, where Tyler Lockett — whose Titans career was only relevant for Immaculate Grid purposes before Sunday — fell on it for a touchdown. Suddenly 21-19.

play

Titans come away with one of the wildest TDs of the season

Cardinals safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson fumbles the interception which finds the hands of Tyler Lockett for a fumble recovery touchdown.

From that point on, it might have felt like fate. The Cardinals punted after racking up 15 yards on their next drive. And while the Titans needed to get into field goal range from their own 18-yard line with one timeout and 1:53 to go, they didn’t have much trouble. Ward hit three straight short completions, found Chig Okonkwo for a first down and then hit his big shot, going over the top of Clark in coverage to Ridley for 38 yards. With the game on the line, the Cardinals didn’t give a corner who’s only in the lineup because of injuries any help over the top against Tennessee’s top wide receiver. After an attempt to let the Titans score failed, the Cardinals used their timeouts on kneel-downs and watched Slye hit a chip-shot field goal to end the sort of game that would cause the home fans to cancel their season tickets for 2026.

Realistically, we’re going to remember the two once-in-a-lifetime plays the Titans stacked for their victory and treat this more as a unforeseeable, unrepeatable meltdown by the Cardinals than some sort of turning point for the previously winless Titans. And that’s probably fair. Per NFL Next Gen Stats, the average win probability for the Titans at any point during this game was 12.1%, the lowest for any winning team in any game since 2016. Ward deserves credit for some of the throws he made late in this matchup, but the problems the Titans had coming into this game didn’t disappear.

Everything beyond those two plays will fade, but this wasn’t simply a fluke loss for Arizona. The Cards stumbled through a game they should have dominated against arguably the worst team in the NFL and left the door open before running directly into it and knocking themselves out. The Cardinals scored touchdowns on three of their first four possessions, one of which was aided by a short field, and then went to sleep on offense. Their five drives in the second quarter produced a total of 27 yards, including what might be the worst intentional grounding penalty I’ve ever seen. Kyler Murray‘s attempted pass was 15 yards away from the nearest receiver and a full 9 yards short of the line of scrimmage.

After halftime, Murray drove the Cardinals into field goal range, only for a premature snap to hit him in the helmet, leading to a Titans fumble recovery. Murray then left the game briefly before returning, but the offense could do nothing; outside of the Demercado run that ended so tragically, the Cardinals managed 28 net yards and two first downs on their 16 ensuing plays after Murray was hit by the snap.

Arizona’s game management simply wasn’t good enough. Facing a third-and-8 from their own 35-yard line with 2:12 to go and a two-point lead, the entire playbook should have been open. The Titans still had a timeout, but with the two-minute warning stopping the clock, the maximum amount of time the Cardinals could have taken off with a run would have been only 12 seconds. Instead, of all people, the Cardinals handed the ball to Demercado. This time, the Titans had an unblocked linebacker at the second level, had edge defender Dre’Mont Jones fight off a block and tackled Demercado for no gain.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that the Cardinals have struggled to get their offense going for the vast majority of a game. Just last week, facing a difficult Seahawks defense, Drew Petzing’s group racked up six points and averaged 16.3 yards per possession across their first nine drives before scoring touchdowns on each of their final two attempts in the fourth quarter. In Week 3, they topped 50 net yards only once on a drive against the 49ers, and that required 33 penalty yards. In the opener against the Saints, leading 20-10 in the third quarter, Murray & Co. mustered only five first downs and 49 net yards combined across their final four drives, opening the door for the Saints to come within a contested catch of tying the game in the final minute.

There is absolutely no consistency to this offense, and that’s a product of the run game dissipating. Losing James Conner and Trey Benson to injuries hurt, but the rush attack was struggling even before the Cardinals were forced to turn to their third-string backs. While they did hit a big play to Demercado on Sunday, they have not been able to rely on their run game keeping the offense on schedule. Between 2023 and 2024, the Cardinals ranked eighth in the league in success rate on designed runs. This season, they’re 31st by the same metric.

Correlation isn’t always causation, but it does seem notable that Cardinals offensive line coach Klayton Adams left Arizona this offseason to join Dallas and take over as their offensive coordinator. Guess what has happened there? Led by a resurgent season from Javonte Williams, a Cowboys run game that ranked 12th in success rate on designed runs between 2023 and 2024 is now second in 2025.

The Cardinals were renowned for their usage of heavy personnel groupings and used a Day 2 pick on blocking tight end Tip Reiman in last year’s draft, but they’ve gotten away from that this season. Petzing was in 12 or 13 personnel (which use two or three tight ends) more than 44% of the time last season; that has gone down below 36% this year. Some of that is injury-related, with Reiman missing all of Week 2 before being carted out of Sunday’s loss with a serious ankle injury. But in Week 4, with the Cardinals flailing on offense for most of the game, Reiman played more snaps on special teams (13) than offense (six). Now, with Reiman expected to miss significant time, those sort of personnel groupings aren’t even on the table.

With the run game rolling in 2023 and 2024, the Cardinals were a top-10 offense by EPA per play with Murray in the lineup. But too much of the offense is falling on his shoulders now, leading to inconsistency as the Cardinals rely on Murray creating outside of structure. There aren’t even consistent roles for their best players. Marvin Harrison Jr. had four catches for 79 yards in the first half and was targeted just once after the break. In Week 3, he had just two targets before halftime. And he has one target out of a stack or bunch formation over the past four weeks. At what point do the Cardinals need to be creating designed opportunities for the guy they drafted with the fourth overall pick in last year’s draft, especially during stretches where the offense has gone missing?

Coach Jonathan Gannon should be distraught. The Cardinals were a completion away from hitting victory formation against the 49ers in Week 3 and lost. They were badly outplayed by the Seahawks in Week 4, but a late comeback should have pushed them to overtime, only for Chad Ryland‘s kickoff to land short of the landing zone and the Seahawks to hit one completion before a 52-yard field goal. They should have won this game going away. The Cardinals could be 4-1 right now. Instead, they’re 2-3 and staring down the Colts and Packers over the next two games before their bye.

The story: The team that has struggled to put opponents away all season finally doesn’t get away with it

The Eagles were in position to leave no doubt. Having drawn comparisons inside and outside of Philadelphia to the 2023 team that rode its luck early in the season before collapsing later on, this was a chance for Nick Sirianni’s group to prove it is more like the 2024 vintage. Facing a great defense in the Broncos, the Eagles had finally thrown the football effectively in the first half. Saquon Barkley‘s first big play of the year arrived on a 47-yard touchdown catch in the third quarter. And with Bo Nix struggling badly and his Broncos trailing by two touchdowns midway through that third stanza, the Eagles were in position to close out the game and put what has been the most frustrating 4-0 start possible for a defending Super Bowl champion in the rear view.

That didn’t happen. After the Barkley touchdown, the Eagles picked up one first down on their next four possessions. Nix, who had been averaging 3.2 yards per dropback when you include his two grounding penalties, put together the most important stretch of his career, proving that he’s capable of fielding a comeback against a very good defense on the road. He led a pair of consecutive touchdown drives at the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth quarter, then set the Broncos up in position for the game-winning field goal. Over that stretch, he went 12-of-13 for 136 yards and nine first downs.

It was the Eagles who imploded. Flummoxed by a series of questionable calls that all seemed to go against the defending champs, they could do nothing to avoid their collapse. As they’ve done in games against the Cowboys, Chiefs and Buccaneers this season, the Eagles got out to a lead but weren’t able to pull away from their opponents. And this time it came back to bite the Birds.

The Eagles didn’t lose simply because of the penalties, but let’s start with that remarkable run of calls and how they impacted the game. The Eagles committed a pair of penalties to start their drives at the end of the third quarter (an A.J. Brown false start) and the start of the fourth quarter (a Brett Toth holding call). Those weren’t controversial, but they did put the Eagles immediately behind schedule on drives that would become three-and-outs. Other calls after the Broncos took the lead were more dramatic:

1. After a good kick return from Will Shipley, the Eagles had a first down on a throw to DeVonta Smith called back for Tyler Steen being illegally downfield. They ended up facing a fourth-and-4 around midfield, and when the Broncos sent a big blitz, Jalen Hurts threw a ball over the top to Smith for a 30-yard completion.

The catch would have put the Eagles in field goal range, but Barkley was flagged for an illegal shift after motioning from out wide into the backfield. (It’s a shame, because Barkley flipped a blitzer over in pass protection after the snap.) Moving one man in motion at the snap is fine, but the Eagles briefly had other players moving while Barkley came in motion, which meant he needed to come to a complete stop before the snap. The snap also came with just two seconds left on the play clock, meaning that there wasn’t much time for Hurts to wait for his star tailback to get set. This also wasn’t controversial, but it was certainly sloppy and meaningful, given that the Eagles would have been in position to kick a field goal to take the lead. Instead, they punted.

2. After the Broncos got the ball back, Sean Payton called for Nix to run a naked bootleg off play-action. There, he met Jalyx Hunt, who quickly closed down the second-year quarterback. Nix tried to escape and throw the ball away, but his attempt didn’t make it back to the line of scrimmage. Nix was flagged for his third intentional grounding of the game, but without so much as an explanation, the flag was picked up. After the game, referee Adrian Hill told a pool reporter that his communication device to speak to other officials wasn’t working and that another official spotted a receiver in the area.

Nix’s throw didn’t make it back to the line of scrimmage. The pool report suggested that “28” was in the area; the Broncos didn’t have a No. 28 on the field for that snap, but they did have a No. 82 in Adam Trautman, who was just past the line of scrimmage and running away from where the ball was thrown. It’s tough for me to believe that Trautman ever had a realistic chance of catching Nix’s pass, but if you believe that Nix’s throw was influenced by Hunt’s hit, you could convince yourself that this wasn’t grounding. I believe the initial call was probably the correct one.

3. With the drive extended and the Broncos in field goal range, the Eagles appeared to come up with a stop when Andrew Mukuba tackled RJ Harvey short of the sticks on another boot concept with 2:29 to go. The Eagles were in position to call timeout and get the ball back before the two-minute warning, down by no more than four points. But Zack Baun was flagged for unnecessary roughness, extending the drive and forcing the Eagles to use their timeouts.

Baun’s naturally going to be upset about this one. Harvey was holding himself up to try to stretch out of the Mukuba tackle and pick up a critical yard. It’s going to be extremely difficult for Baun to slow himself down and avoid tackling Harvey if he actually does go down at the last moment. Baun’s already visibly about to launch himself as Harvey’s knee hits the ground. At the same time, though, Baun also hit a vulnerable Harvey in the head with a forearm, making what might have been a fractionally late hit look and feel more vicious and unnecessary. Eagles fans are upset with the call, and Broncos fans would have been upset if it hadn’t been called. I couldn’t blame either.

4. With nine seconds to go and the Eagles desperately trying to get in position for a game-winning touchdown, Kevin Patullo dialed up four verticals, with Dallas Goedert and Brown switching downfield to try creating a throwing angle. Hurts tried to put his pass to Goedert on the back shoulder, but it fell incomplete. Despite heavy contact from backup safety JL Skinner, the refs didn’t throw a flag for pass interference.

Now, this would have been a very controversial pass interference call. Goedert and Skinner were engaged and hand-fighting for about 10 yards before the ball arrived. There’s unquestionably contact, and there’s a slight late tug on Goedert’s jersey that might justify a flag. But this was hardly the obvious call Sirianni was making it out to be on the sideline. This would have been more controversial as a flag on Skinner (who was penalized earlier on the drive for pass interference) than it will be as a non-call.

Game situation shouldn’t matter for calls, but this would have been a game-shifting decision on an extremely narrow flag. How many of the Eagles fans who wanted this flag were upset that the refs didn’t let the players decide things on the field when James Bradberry IV was (correctly) rang up for holding to set up the game-winning kick for the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII? This was a good no-call.

Lost in the conversation about the calls is the reality that the Eagles, yet again, were not able to definitively put a team away. The 2024 Eagles were typically able to rest by the time they got to the final few minutes of the fourth quarter; while there were occasional scares against the Jaguars and Panthers and eventual losses after late drops against the Falcons and Commanders, the eventual Super Bowl champs were typically able to extend or maintain leads in the fourth quarter last season.

play

Broncos go ahead on TD and 2-pt conversion in the fourth quarter

Evan Engram finds pay dirt then Troy Franklin snags a dime from Bo Nix to give the Broncos the lead on a successful 2-point conversion.

This year’s team has not been able to do that, in part because it hasn’t been able to reliably run the football. Strip out scrambles and kneel-downs, and the Eagles are 23rd in success rate on the ground in the second half of games this season, down from 10th a year ago.

Success rate doesn’t matter as much if a team is generating big plays, but those haven’t been around, either. The Eagles obviously haven’t had the same explosive plays that helped them seal up games in 2024 with late Barkley touchdowns. While he had a 47-yard catch in the passing game (and would have had another long touchdown as a receiver last week if Hurts saw him come wide open on a scramble drill), Barkley has yet to turn even one of his 83 carries into a 20-yard rush this season. In 2024, Barkley had 17 runs hit 20-plus yards during the regular season and added four more (including 60-, 62- and 78-yard touchdowns) during the playoffs.

What was truly remarkable in the second half on Sunday is that the Eagles simply didn’t even try to run the ball. As Nate Tice mentioned on Twitter, the Eagles essentially abandoned the run in the second half. Holding a lead for much of the final two quarters, the Eagles dialed up just two designed runs, one of which was called back for holding. They dropped back 26 times. Four of those dropbacks were RPOs where Hurts could have chosen to hand off the ball, but the most devastating run game in football last season simply didn’t run it in the second half of this game.

Are there mitigating factors here? Some. Seven of the pass dropbacks came with the Eagles trailing and out of timeouts, where a run probably wasn’t going to be a good idea. Penalties at the beginning of drives pushed the Eagles into first-and-15 on one possession and first-and-20 on the next, steering them toward the pass by virtue of the game situation. Those drives never got back into spots where the run was a realistic threat, limiting the Eagles to dropbacks on six more snaps.

But at the same time, the Broncos weren’t exactly selling out to stop the run throughout those drives. There were a few seven-man boxes, but Denver never got to the sort of eight-man loaded box that truly discourages teams from running the football. Barkley finished the day with just six carries, four of which came against seven-man fronts. He averaged nearly six yards per carry in those spots last season.

In addition, the Broncos shifted toward heavier doses of zone coverage as the game went along. Hurts was 9-of-15 for 142 yards and two touchdown passes against man coverage, but he was 14-of-23 for 138 yards — and took all six of his sacks — against zone. The Broncos were in zone on 17 of Hurts’ 22 dropbacks in the second half, and the Eagles never really found a solution that worked for them against those coverages.

No offensive coordinator is going to be on the hot seat after a 4-1 start, but there are understandable questions about whether Patullo is finding the answers the Eagles need on the offensive side of the ball. This is the most expensive offense in NFL history in terms of cash spending, returning 10 of 11 starters from a devastating 2024 attack. Sure, guard Landon Dickerson was limited to 12 snaps in this game after suffering an ankle injury, and offensive tackle Lane Johnson was out for most of the Rams win with a stinger, but the Eagles are hardly the Ravens defense in terms of injuries.

play

Eagles lose 1st game of season after Hail Mary attempt fails

The Broncos’ defense steps up and prevents the Eagles from scoring on the game’s final play, sealing a win for Denver.

More than anything, this team doesn’t have a successful offensive identity right now, which is why so many of its star players are griping about not getting the ball frequently enough. It’s one thing for a wide receiver like Brown to complain about not getting it enough when Barkley is coming close to the single-season rushing record. It’s another when the run game isn’t creating explosive plays or even keeping the offense on schedule. This offense is 17th in EPA per play, down from sixth in 2024.

Patullo’s quandary has to stretch to the quarterback. Likely in the hopes of keeping their signal-caller healthy for the full season, the Eagles have essentially removed Hurts from the designed run game. Stripping sneaks and scrambles out of the equation, Hurts has eight designed runs in five games this season. He has averaged about 3.5 designed runs per game over the prior three seasons. Those runs have an impact, even when Hurts doesn’t actually carry the football; the threat of Hurts keeping it on read plays or running counter or power concepts slows down opposing defenders, keeping them from chasing down Barkley when he gets the football.

Do the Eagles get Hurts involved in the designed run game, even if just for a week or two, to try making life easier for Barkley? Does Patullo have another solution? Are he and Sirianni just going to spend each game leaning into whatever the biggest criticism of the offense was the prior week? Or will Barkley start finding those explosive runs that have been missing this season? The Eagles are going to be fine, but after 2024, the bar was supposed to be much higher than fine.

The story: Star power doesn’t always overcome the weakest links

I normally lean toward avoiding the Thursday game in the Monday morning column, and there were certainly other viable candidates for frustrating defeats. The Chargers couldn’t stop committing penalties in a 27-10 loss to the Commanders. The Dolphins went up 17-0 and then had one drive gain more than 20 yards the rest of the way in a brutal 27-24 loss to the Panthers. But I have to go back to what we saw in Inglewood to begin the week.

After a hot start from the 49ers, who went up 14-0, the Rams basically dominated this game. While their first two drives ended in a punt and a fumble, Sean McVay’s team averaged 8.2 yards per play from that point forward, behind only the Seahawks and Buccaneers so far in Week 5. Over that stretch, Matthew Stafford went 27-of-42 for 365 yards, three touchdown passes and zero sacks. Facing a 49ers defense that was already battling injuries before losing linemen Yetur Gross-Matos and Kalia Davis in the first half, the Rams did whatever they wanted throwing the football for most of this game.

Meanwhile, the Niners felt like everything they did on offense was a struggle for most of the final three quarters. Mac Jones struggled through the game at times, and an offense whose top four options at receiver were all injured relied on Kendrick Bourne, who was cut by the Patriots at the end of August. On paper, this should have been a Rams blowout.

Yet on the field, the 49ers somehow pulled out a miraculous victory. There were three key moments that didn’t go Los Angeles’ way, and they all, to some extent, were self-inflicted mistakes.

First, McVay’s conservative decision-making — which has been an issue for the Rams this season — created problems. With the game tied at 20 and 8:19 to go, the Rams faced a fourth-and-1 from their own 39-yard line. McVay elected to punt. Different fourth-down models had their own feelings about the decision, but Ben Baldwin’s model had this as an enormous swing, with the Rams costing themselves seven percentage points of win probability with the decision to punt. That’s one of the bigger swings you’ll see from any decision in a typical season. (ESPN’s model also favored going for it by 2.4%.)

McVay got what he wanted, though. The Rams punted all the way to the San Francisco 2-yard line. Jones was clearly less than 100 percent, and the 49ers had been limited to one first down on their previous two drives. When he discusses his choices publicly, McVay is prone to leaning on game flow after he makes a fourth-down decision. I’d argue that the game flow suggested that the Rams offense looked like the Greatest Show on Turf edition, but perhaps McVay had more faith in his defense.

The tough thing about game flow is that it doesn’t always keep flowing the same way. The 49ers drove 57 yards on the ensuing possession, picking up two third-down conversions and taking more than five minutes off the clock. They actually never made it back to the spot where the Rams punted, but it didn’t matter when Eddy Pineiro booted a 59-yard field goal through the uprights, giving the 49ers a 23-20 lead with 2:52 to go.

Here’s the second mistake. After the Rams worked the ball inside the 5-yard line with 1:07 left and trailing by three points, Kyren Williams fumbled at the 2-yard line, handing the 49ers back the football. It was a spectacular play from rookie lineman Alfred Collins, who batted out the ball and recovered it for a 49ers turnover — but it’s also a problem the Rams have simply chosen to overlook with their lead running back.

play

Why Shanahan, Saleh deserve credit for 49ers’ win over Rams

Tom Pelissero joins “The Rich Eisen Show” to recap the 49ers’ gritty win over the Rams on Thursday night.

Thursday’s fumble was Williams’ 10th since the start of 2023, a 33-game span. The only back with more fumbles since the start of the 2023 campaign than Williams is Rhamondre Stevenson. And while Williams has the fourth-most touches of any back in the NFL over that span, he is fumbling once every 71 touches, while the rest of the league’s backs have fumbled about once every 108 touches over that same span.

I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that the Rams should have thrown the ball in that spot, and Collins deserves credit for a truly clutch play at the most opportune of moments. But this isn’t a risk that the Rams have been worried about over the past few years. Williams has continued to enjoy one of the largest workloads in the league, and the Rams signed him to a three-year, $33 million extension this offseason.

It seemed telling that the Rams all but benched backup Blake Corum after he fumbled on a pitch from Stafford in the second quarter, giving the second-year back just four offensive snaps the rest of the way. Williams was right back on the field after his fumble for the final drive of regulation and then the Rams’ drive in overtime, which ended in agonizing fashion.

That brings us to our third pivotal moment — when Williams was stopped on a fourth-and-1 carry from the 11-yard line with 3:41 to go in OT. A short field goal would have tied and extended the game, although the Rams were having kicking issues that I’ll get to in a minute. The models I’ve seen suggest that going for it was the obvious correct call for the Rams, with NFL Next Gen Stats’ fourth-down algorithm pegging it as a 4.6% win probability swing in the right direction. ESPN’s model had it at 10.4%.

Naturally, McVay came out after the game and said that he made the wrong choice, seemingly both the decision to go for it and the playcall he chose. The Rams ran duo, one of their core run concepts, but Williams was stuffed at the line.

Did McVay choose poorly? I’m not so sure. He was right to go for it; given the game situation, kicking a field goal would have run the risk of limiting the Rams to no better than a tie. With the Rams down to one timeout, there was no guarantee they were going to get the ball back again after a successful kick. And given that both the Rams and 49ers called timeout between third down and the fourth-down attempt, it’s hardly as if McVay was rushed into the decision to go for it or any particular play. He had plenty of time to think about his choice and make the best call for the situation. I’m at least a little skeptical that he truly believes the playcall was wrong, even if the outcome didn’t go well.

Should the Rams have called something else? Fourth-down second-guessing has evolved into a place where the playcall an offense makes on a failed attempt is always wrong. It’s an easy game. We just saw the called play not work in reality in front of our very eyes. Almost by definition, any other playcall would have a better shot of being more successful, given that we didn’t have to see how it would actually go with the game on the line.

The Rams had leaned heavily into the passing game during the final three-plus quarters, and they had been very successful working choice concepts and getting their receivers open out of stacks and bunches in key spots. You don’t necessarily want to go back to those same concepts in every big moment, though, and there’s always a chance that a short pass gets tipped at the line and knocked away.

I probably would have preferred a pass given how well Stafford had been playing and what little rush the 49ers had been able to muster all game, but if that pass had fallen incomplete or been dropped, there would have been an outcry insisting that the Rams should have kept things simple and tried to run over a tired line of 49ers backups for 1 yard.

The look the Rams got for their run didn’t turn out to be great. Mykel Williams split between guard Kevin Dotson and tackle Warren McClendon Jr. at the snap, and that left awkward angles for Davis Allen to block Fred Warner and for Puka Nacua to try displacing backup cornerback Chase Lucas (who did an incredible job of holding his gap against one of the league’s best blocking wideouts). Jordan Whittington, the third wideout in the area, never really got on anybody.

Could the Rams have given Stafford the ability to check to another play if he didn’t like the run look? Would they look back and wish they ran behind the other side of the line, given the presence of a backup right tackle in McClendon? Sure. I’m also going to be realistic and say that the Rams believed they could get a yard and just got outexecuted. That happens sometimes, too.

As with the Cardinals and Eagles, though, focusing on the key moments hides the broader problems that led this game to be a close contest. The Rams are a very good team, and their handful of stars are playing at an extremely high level. As was the case in their loss to the Eagles, though, the Rams were hit by their two obvious weak spots: cornerback and the kicking game.

Let’s start with the latter. Joshua Karty had two field goals blocked late in the loss to the Eagles, and while those might not have been solely on him, he had a much worse game against the 49ers. He missed a 53-yard field goal attempt in the third quarter, which came after Williams dropped what should have been an easy first down and much more in the flat on the prior play. The 49ers were able to penetrate on the interior during the miss, and that continued again later in the game, when Jordan Elliott shot in between the long-snapper and right guard to block Karty’s extra point try, keeping the score at 20-20.

The Rams have now had four kicks blocked through five games. While this has obviously come in a year that has served as some sort of odd renaissance for blocked kicks, just one team (2021 Washington) has had more than four kicks blocked over an entire season across the past eight years. The Rams will have to hold the line for 12 more games to avoid becoming the next team to deal with that problem. Karty also came up short of the landing zone with his opening kickoff in overtime, handing the ball to the 49ers on the 40-yard line.

The clear weak spot on this roster, meanwhile, is cornerback. The Eagles had success picking on Emmanuel Forbes Jr. and Darious Williams in the Week 3 comeback victory, and the Rams drastically dropped Forbes’ snap rate on Thursday. Without much confidence in their corners, the Rams played zone on 82% of Jones’ dropbacks, limiting their ability to press and threaten an underwhelming group of 49ers receivers.

Bourne had a field day, and it came mostly by picking on slot defender Quentin Lake and other defensive backs over the middle of the field. He took a quick crossing route for 35 yards in the first quarter when Jaylen McCollough missed a tackle, Bourne’s longest catch on a day where he had 10 receptions on 11 targets for 142 yards.

The Rams were too sloppy in coverage. They allowed a 15-yard reception to Christian McCaffrey early in the game on a play where no zone defender matched to the star back’s route. Tight end Jake Tonges was left completely uncovered off the line of scrimmage for a 6-yard touchdown on the opening drive. In overtime, a missed tackle by Forbes on McCaffrey turned a checkdown into a 15-yard completion, getting the 49ers into field goal range for what would be the game-winning kick. The Rams whiffed on 17.2% of their tackle attempts in this game per NFL Next Gen Stats, the fifth-highest rate for any defense in Week 5. And while we can chalk that up a little to McCaffrey being a special talent, the Rams’ missed tackle rate was over 20% in last week’s win over the Colts.

The Rams are a very good football team. They looked utterly unstoppable for stretches of this game. I’m still not entirely sure how they lost. There will be weeks when their explosive passing attack and their fine young pass rushers take over games. If they continue to struggle with kick protection, don’t get better in the secondary and/or use this loss to lean further into McVay’s conservative tendencies with fourth-down decisions, though, they’re not going to get that second ring for Stafford before he retires. The Rams can beat anybody on their day, a list that includes themselves.

It’s the second international break of the 2025-26 season and Lamine Yamal has a week off. That’s good news from the perspective of the 18-year-old really needing it, but the bad news for the Barcelona and Spain forward is that he will spend it recovering from injury after suffering a groin issue during the Champions League defeat against Paris Saint-Germain last Wednesday.

Lamal’s groin injury could simply be down to bad luck and the rigors of top-level football, but when the teenager’s incredible appearance numbers are factored in — 130 senior games and 8,158 minutes on the pitch by his 18th birthday — the shadow of burnout and the danger of football running its bigger young star into the ground becomes a worrying possibility.

No other elite footballer has registered anywhere close to the appearances and minutes clocked up by Yamal by the age of 18 and his workload has led to FIFPRO, the global players’ union, using his game-time for club and country as a case study in a 51-page report on the 2024-25 season titled “Overworked and Underprotected — Player Heath and Performance Impact.”

“The modern game’s rising intensity is challenging enough for established professionals, but for young players aged 16 to 20, the risks are even greater,” Dr Darren Burgess, Chair of FIFPRO’s High-Performance Advisory Network said. “At a stage when their bodies and minds are still developing, the demands of congested schedules and high-intensity training can have lasting consequences for both performance and career longevity.”

– Yamal injury ‘not good,’ unsure of status for Clásico – Flick
– Pedri slams ‘dreadful’ first half in 4-1 thrashing by Sevilla
– Transfer rumors, news: Man United eye Barça GK Ter Stegen

So how much more active has Yamal been than his contemporaries? The answer to that is staggering, and perhaps alarming.

Yamal’s 130 appearances for Barcelona and Spain prior to his 18th birthday are almost twice as many as the second player on the list of current players among those two teams: Pau Cubarsí, the 18-year-old defender, registered 69 appearances, with midfielders Gavi (60) and Pedri (49) next.

Beyond Barcelona and Spain, Yamal’s numbers continue to be off the scale in comparison to those playing at a similar level.

Yamal’s sensational performances last year saw him named as the 2024 Golden Boy — the award presented by Italian newspaper Tuttosport to the most outstanding Under-21 footballer in Europe — and he did so having clocked up 8,158 minutes by his 18th birthday.

None of the three most recent winners — Jude Bellingham (2023), Gavi (2022) and Pedri (2021) — come close. Bellingham was nearest, with 6,216 minutes by his 18th birthday, while Gavi (4,195) and Pedri (3,811) both had significantly lower minutes.

Bellingham’s workload has often been cited as a concern, with the Real Madrid and England midfielder having been a regular at club level since breaking through as a 16-year-old at Birmingham City, but the now-22-year-old did not make his 100th senior appearance until he was 18 years and 10 months old.

Guess what? Yamal became the youngest player ever to reach 100 games by hitting the mark aged 17 years and seven months — eclipsing previous record holder Romelu Lukaku by four months.

So far in his prodigious career, since making his Barcelona debut aged just 15 years, nine months and 16 days against Real Betis in April 2023, Yamal has been relatively untroubled by injury, missing just 18 games for Barca and Spain in that time, including Sunday’s LaLiga clash against Sevilla, but according to Transfermarkt, his injuries have already amounted to 133 days out of action since his club debut.

And if Barcelona’s worst fears are confirmed, Yamal’s latest injury could keep him out of action for up to a month, ruling him out of Spain’s World Cup qualifiers against Georgia and Bulgaria over the next week and putting his participation in El Clasico against Real Madrid on Oct. 26 in doubt.

“We don’t know when Lamine will return because with this injury,” Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said on Friday. “It’s not easy to say since it’s not a muscle injury. We don’t know if he’ll be back in two, three, or four weeks, so I don’t know if he’ll be ready for the Clasico. We have to manage his minutes. He’ll take it step-by-step.”

There is already clear tension between Barcelona and Spain over the national team’s handling of the player, however. Flick, who coached Germany between leaving Bayern Munich in 2021 and joining Barcelona in 2024, was pointed in his criticism of Spain’s use of Yamal during the September World Cup qualifiers.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “He [Yamal] went to the national team in pain, played and was given painkillers to play. He played 79 minutes and 73 — that’s not taking care of the players.

“Spain has the best players in every position. It would be worth taking care of the young players. I’m sad about the situation, but it’s like they are doing this [to them].”

In response, Spain coach Luis de la Fuente questioned Flick’s comments, saying he “was surprised, given that he [Flick] is a manager who has also coached a national team and I thought he would have had more empathy.”

play

Hislop: Yamal will compete for the Ballon d’Or every year

Shaka Hislop believes it’s only a matter of time before Lamine Yamal claims his own Ballon d’Or trophy.

Yamal isn’t the first young player to himself at the center of club versus country tension.

Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen, two players who shot to international stardom at major tournaments with England at the age of 18, constantly found themselves in the starting XI for club and country, and both have since admitted to rushing back into action too soon for the national team following lengthy injury battles.

Owen and Rooney were also well past their best and discarded by England by the age of 30, so there are warning signs for Yamal to heed.

“Physically, exposing teenagers to repeated match and training loads designed for fully mature players increases the risk of overuse injuries,” Burgess, who is also a former high-performance director at Arsenal and Liverpool, said. “Growth plates, tendons, and ligaments remain vulnerable during these years, and excessive high-speed running or short recovery windows can lead to long-term structural damage.

“What might begin as a minor issue — a recurring hamstring strain, a stress fracture — can quickly become a pattern that follows a player throughout their career. Perhaps the greatest cost of all is lost potential. A player rushed into the spotlight too soon, without adequate protection and progressive development, may see their career shortened before it ever truly begins.”

Barcelona and Spain, therefore, have a huge responsibility to Yamal and other youngsters who pull on their iconic jerseys. At 18, Yamal has the world at his feet and could be the natural heir to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, but he won’t have a chance if he burns out before he hits 30.

“If the sport is serious about nurturing the next generation, it must prioritize development over exploitation,” Burgess said. “Only then will today’s young talents have the chance to become tomorrow’s enduring stars.”

The UEFA Women’s Champions League (UWCL) returns on Tuesday with a new format, mirroring the men’s competition, and all 18 clubs playing six league-phase games each in one single table before the knockout rounds.

Europe’s top club tournament features three clubs from England (including debutants Manchester United), Spain and France, while, as ever, it will provide a platform for the stars of both the present and future to shine.

With that in mind, here are the players to watch from every team in this year’s UWCL.

– UWCL preview: Team-by-team, talking points, predictions
– Women’s Champions League 2025-26 kits: Ranking every jersey
– Thakur: OL Lyonnes spent big to reclaim title, but will it work?

Arsenal: Mariona Caldentey, 29, CM

Caldentey was voted the player of the season in the Women’s Super League (WSL) in her first season in England, while leading Arsenal to their second European title. The 29-year-old midfielder played in multiple roles, impacting the game on and off the ball, and led the charts for most progressive passes (199), most passes into the penalty box (65) and most tackles in the final third (24) in the WSL last season. She also showcased her ability to create chances, break lines and help in Renée Slegers’ high press last season.

Atlético Madrid: Fiamma Benitez, 21, AM

Atlético Madrid are back in the UWCL after a four-year gap, having beaten Swedish side BK Hacken in a tight third qualifying round contest 3-2 over two legs. The club look refreshed, with plenty of talented young players in their ranks, and the 21-year-old Fiamma leads the way. She is good at creating chances with measured passes, and picked up nine assists last season in the league (the most by any player excluding champions Barcelona). The former Valencia midfielder is also good at arriving late into the box, can strike the ball from long range and is good in the air, which has helped her to four goals in five games in Liga F this season.

Barcelona: Patri Guijarro, 27, DM

Patri is often overlooked when compared alongside teammates Aitana Bonmatí and Alexia Putellas, but finished sixth in the Ballon d’Or rankings this year and was the UWCL final MVP in 2023. The 27-year-old is a metronome in midfield, with excellent range and accuracy in her passing, and shoulders a lot of progression responsibility — indeed, she recorded the most passes into the final third last season in the UWCL (90). Despite not being a primary chance creator, Patri had the joint-most assists (5) in the UWCL last season and has been one of the most consistent players in women’s football. Bonmatí and Putellas get the headlines, but Patri is indispensable in Barcelona’s style of play.

Bayern Munich: Lena Oberdorf, 23, CM

After tearing her ACL shortly after signing from Wolfsburg, Oberdorf finally made her Bayern Munich debut in August and hasn’t missed a beat since scoring a brace in her first start. The Germany international is the complete midfielder and has been given freedom to take up a slightly more advanced position under new manager José Barcala. She has a great shot from range, is a threat from set pieces, and is good in the air too. But her main attributes are her ball distribution and ground coverage, which is almost unparalleled, and she is one of the very best at providing a screening presence in front of her defense.

Benfica: Caroline Møller, 26, AM/ST

Møller joined Benfica this summer after four years at Real Madrid and brings UWCL experience as the Denmark forward was the first player to score a hat trick for Madrid in the competition, doing so against Breidablik in her first season at the club in 2021. The 26-year-old is an excellent outlet and can play the role of a support striker very well. She uses her physicality and 5-foot-10 height to hold off challenges and is brilliant at linking up play with short crisp exchanges in the attacking third. Her partnership with Cristina Martín-Prieto up front could prove to be a dangerous avenue for the Portuguese side this season.

Chelsea: Keira Walsh, 28, DM

The reigning English champions are still trying to land their first European trophy and have made some big-money additions to their squad over the past year, including USWNT pair Alyssa Thompson and Naomi Girma, but it’s midfielder Walsh who could be key. The 28-year-old has finally settled and is making an impact for Sonia Bompastor’s side. She is a savant on the ball, circulating and progressing play as needed, and is great at controlling the tempo of the game and stitching play from defense to attack. Walsh ranks joint third for most passes into the final third in the WSL this season (22) and provides Chelsea with security on and off the ball.

Juventus: Cristiana Girelli, 35, ST

Girelli showcased everything about her experience and quality in Italy‘s semifinal run at Euro 2025 this year. The 35-year-old striker is excellent in the air, making her a viable outlet for long balls, and is a great target for crosses or set pieces. She has excellent instincts inside the box too, and her fine movement consistently earns her chances to score. Girelli finished as the top goal scorer in Serie A last season (19), helping Juventus to win another domestic title.

Manchester United: Elisabeth Terland, 24, ST

Having only ever made the qualification phase before, Man United are set to make their full debut at the UWCL after Terland’s hat trick helped them stage a comeback against Hammarby in the second leg of the third qualifying round. Terland, a free transfer from Brighton in summer 2024, has established a great relationship with midfielder Ella Toone and is now showcasing her excellent goal-scoring abilities. Indeed, her numbers are impressive, as she has 10-plus goals in three of her last four domestic seasons, with her 15 goal contributions last season her best domestic return. While not the highest volume shot taker, Terland’s movement and positioning in the box allows her to consistently find space and she has all sorts of finishes in her repertoire, from tap-ins to finishes from acute angles.

OH Leuven: Aurélie Reynders, 18, RW

Leuven are making their debut in the UWCL this season, having beaten Swedish giants Rosengard and Ukraine’s Vorskla Poltava in qualifying en route to the league phase. The Belgian side’s squad is filled with bright young players as they have just three players over the age of 25, with 18-year-old Reynders among the best. The right winger often finds space between the defensive lines in OH Leuven’s 4-2-3-1 and likes to link play and create chances with her passes. Although not a prolific ball carrier, she has a burst of pace that allows her more time to get away shots or crosses.

OL Lyonnes: Lily Yohannes, 18, CM

The 18-year-old USWNT star joined OL Lyonnes from Ajax this summer in a much-anticipated move and has instantly made herself valuable. Yohannes has been tasked with playing as the deepest midfielder in manager Jonathan Giraldez’s 4-1-4-1 formation, with ball circulation as her primary objective. The youngster excels in breaking lines with her passes and vision in the attacking third, while she has majestic close control, allowing her to retain possession under pressure and win fouls. Her ability to spot and execute passes is phenomenal. And, further forward, she can be a goal threat from any distance.

Paris FC: Clara Mateo, 27, FW

After helping Paris FC win a first major trophy (the Coupe de France) for almost 20 years, Mateo is aiming to lead them to a deep run in Europe. Indeed, despite the presence of perennial champions OL Lyonnes, the 27-year-old finished as the top goal scorer (18) and assist provider (8) in the French Première Ligue last season. Mateo is a complete forward capable of playing across the front line; she has great movement, vision and technical ability on the ball and ranked first for carries into the penalty area last season (37). She also ranked second for most shots taken (65) and third for chances created (40), so will be a talismanic figure for Sandrine Soubeyrand’s side in the absence of the retired Gaëtane Thiney.

Paris Saint-Germain: Sakina Karchaoui, 29, AM/LW

Paris Saint-Germain will be eager to make a mark in the UWCL this season after losing another host of star players to OL Lyonnes in the summer. Karchaoui has been made captain and has undergone a positional transformation up front, constantly moving around and offering options for her teammates. She loves to take on opponents, often earning fouls, and her 58 dribbles and 39 fouls won was the second most by any player in the French league last season. An adept chance creator from set pieces and open play, she was also in top five for crosses attempted (99).

Real Madrid: Linda Caicedo, 19, LW/RW/AM

Caicedo finished second in the first-ever Women’s Kopa Trophy (for best U21 player) behind Barcelona’s Vicky López at the Ballon d’Or ceremony. The Colombia international has been a talismanic figure for club and country, leading their attack, scoring goals and destroying opposition defenses. She is a flamboyant ball carrier, breaking lines and creating chances, and no player had more progressive carries (45) and more carries into the penalty box (36) in last season’s UWCL. Caicedo also has an affinity for the big stage and often makes an impact in big games.

Roma: Manuela Giugliano, 28, CM

Giugliano is the captain of Roma and is their heartbeat in the No. 10 position. Constantly getting on the ball and stitching together attacks, she has brilliant range in her distribution and played the most progressive passes (199) and passes into the final third (182) in the league last season. She also had the most attempted passes of any midfielder (1,297), however, Giugliano has an affinity to play risky ball to try and accelerate the tempo, often resulting in turnovers and lower accuracy numbers. Floating around to find space in the final third, her ball striking and finesse make her a goal threat from any distance.

St. Polten: Sarah Mattner-Trembleau, 22, LW/RW

Austrian side St. Polten are making their fourth consecutive appearance in the main draw at the UWCL, as they beat Denmark’s Fortuna Hjorring 5-2 on aggregate in the third qualifying round. Mattner-Trembleau, a right-footed winger, has been key, and scored in five of her last six club games before the second leg against Fortuna. She is a tireless worker and loves to take on opponents with her pace and skill. The Germany U23 international is versatile too, and can play on either flank or as a full back.

Twente: Jill Roord, 28, AM/SS

Roord is back at her hometown club Twente after spending four years each in England (Arsenal and Man City) and Germany (Wolfsburg and Bayern). A constant threat in the box, she is known for her ability to contribute goals and assists from midfield, and loves to play off a central striker who can complement her movements. Her late runs into the box helped her to score 5+ goals in each of the last five league seasons, while she has already picked up four assists in three Eredivisie games this season.

Vålerenga: Olaug Tvedten, 25, AM/LW

Valerenga are back in the UWCL after making their debut in the group stage in 2023-24, and Tvedten has been in some sensational form this season. A talismanic figure in attack, she leads the charts for most goals scored in the 2025 Norwegian Toppserien (17) and her 22 goal contributions are also the most by any player in the competition. The left winger often takes up narrow positions and loves to link her teammates with one-touch passes, allowing the side to move forward. Her low center of gravity means she can hold on to the ball under tough challenges and win fouls, while her movement and clever runs make her a menace in the box. She is not the quickest, but has an excellent change of pace which allows her to create space to work her magic.

VfL Wolfsburg: Svenja Huth, 34, RW/AM

Wolfsburg are trying to reclaim their glory days at both domestic and European level and the veteran will be a key figure in fulfilling that ambition. With Stephan Lerch back in the dugout, Huth is back in a familiar role and is often seen marauding down the right flank and putting in a high volume of quality crosses — indeed, she had the third-most assists (7) and fifth-most crosses attempted (132) in the Frauen Bundesliga last season. Excellent from set pieces as well, it’s her deliveries that amplify the threat of striker Alexandra Popp and is one of their go-to attacking moves.