Rams Run Three Backs Into End Zone, Chargers Stay Winless
The Los Angeles Rams beat the Los Angeles Chargers 24-9 on November 1, 2026, handing the Chargers their seventh consecutive loss to open the season. Three different Rams running backs scored touchdowns, and Justin Herbert finished with zero — a brutal summary of the afternoon's imbalance.
The Rams didn't need to be elegant. They needed to be physical, and they were. Blake Corum carried 11 times for 73 yards and a touchdown. Kyren Williams added 16 carries for 56 yards and a score. Between the two of them, the Rams ground the Chargers down in a way that looks, from the outside, like a team that figured out exactly what this matchup required. Matthew Stafford was efficient rather than spectacular — 17 of 25 for 157 yards and a touchdown — and Puka Nacua was his most reliable outlet, hauling in 11 receptions for 80 yards and a score. That's a complete team performance: the run game did the heavy lifting, the passing game did just enough, and the defense held a capable quarterback to nine points.
Herbert's afternoon is the harder story to tell. He completed 24 of 32 passes for 257 yards, which on paper looks functional. But zero touchdowns and a final score of 9 tells you everything about how those yards translated — or didn't. Ladd McConkey was the one Charger who consistently created separation, catching 4 passes for 86 yards, but the offense couldn't convert production into points. The Chargers came into this game having retained offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel as playcaller after a bye week of self-scouting, per ESPN. Whatever adjustments were made, the scoreboard didn't reflect them.
The Chargers entered Week 8 at 0-6, and they leave it at 0-7. That's the kind of number that reshapes a season into something else entirely — a referendum on roster construction, coaching decisions, and organizational direction. The Rams, meanwhile, were reportedly so unsettled heading into this game that they dressed multiple kickers, which reads as either extreme caution or genuine chaos depending on your perspective. They won by 15. The story of this afternoon was a Rams team that leaned on its ground game with three different backs finding the end zone, and a Chargers offense that generated yards but couldn't manufacture touchdowns against a defense that clearly had answers. Los Angeles has two NFL teams. Right now, only one of them looks like it belongs on the field.