The Rams produced a lot of eye-popping numbers on Monday night, including a career-high 17 catches for wide receiver Puka Nacua, but the most important ones weren’t positive ones for the team.
Those would be a 37-34 final score that favored the Bills and the 2-3 record that the Rams are left with thanks to the result. That’s not the result you’d expect for a team that gained 454 yards and picked up 33 first downs over the course of the evening, but Nacua’s message after the game was that the Rams can’t afford to wallow in a painful loss because they’ll be back on the field before they know it.
“It’s Monday night. We gotta be able to physically and mentally reset by tomorrow and get ready to play back here at home,” Nacua said, via Eric Williams of Fox Sports. “We got the Arizona Cardinals, a familiar face coming in with Mike LaFleur, but it’s gonna be an opportunity for us to respond and really look ourselves in the mirror and say, what is our identity gonna be? And can’t let the Buffalo Bills beat us twice.”
The final margin can be attributed to a pair of miscues in the kicking game as Harrison Mevis missed one field goal and had his game-winning try in overtime blocked by Bills linebacker Greg Rousseau. Rams head coach Sean McVay pointed in that direction after the game, but the Rams offense and defense could have both finished things without relying on special teams that have regularly disappointed in Los Angeles. Honing that part of their identity would be a good start to making the team’s record a little better to look at in the coming weeks.