In the Week 5 edition of “Monday Night Football,” the Los Angeles Rams host the Buffalo Bills.
The Rams are coming off a very close win over the Philadelphia Eagles, improving to 2-2 in the process. They haven’t been the super team many expected, though injuries have played their part. They have a chance to get over .500 if they can get a win against the Bills on Monday night.
The Bills, meanwhile, are coming off their first loss of the season, dropping a disappointing game against the division rival New England Patriots. The Bills are off to a 3-0 start behind a pair of explosive offensive performances in Weeks 1 and 2 and then a comeback victory despite turning the ball over five times in Week 3. Their defense is far from over, and the Rams present a formidable challenge.
Will the Rams leave the stadium with a winning record, or will the Bills bounce back from last week’s loss? We will find out soon enough. Before we break down the match, here’s a look at how you can watch the game.
Where to watch live Rams vs. Bills
When the Bills have the ball
The Bills gained more than 400 yards and scored at least 36 points in each of their first two games of the season, playing clean football as they earned wins over the Houston Texans and Detroit Lions. They didn’t turn the ball over and looked like an absolute machine as they worked their way through two defenses with relative ease.
Over the past two weeks, things have been a bit choppier, as the Bills haven’t topped 350 yards in either game and turned the ball over multiple times against the Los Angeles Chargers (five) and New England Patriots (two), scoring 24 and 26 points, respectively. They were lucky to escape with a win against LA, but were not so lucky against New England and suffered their first loss of the season.
The Rams, meanwhile, were blown apart by the division rival San Francisco 49ers in Week 1, but have since been stingy on defense. They’ve held each of their last three opponents to under 260 yards, and two of them to under 185. Their pass defense, in particular, has been remarkable, but the run defense has also been pretty good since the first game. And they did it without Myles Garrett (who had knee surgery after the Week 1 game) and, last week, without Aaron Donald (who was scheduled to return Monday after a one-game absence).
Buffalo will be without wide receiver Josh Palmer on Monday night, and may be without No. 1 target DJ Moore. Moore is questionable after missing two of his last three practices. That could mean Josh Allen has Khalil Shakir, Keon Coleman and Dalton Kincaid as his passing-game options, leaving the Bills shorthanded against what has been a good pass defense over the past three weeks and that brings back Jaylen Watson after he missed most of the last two games.
Of course, Allen can make any group of players functional at the position, as we saw for much of the past two years before the Bills traded for Moore. It’s worth noting, however, that the Rams have completely shut down the tight end position so far this year, allowing 12 catches for a league-low 85 yards to players at the position. Kincaid may struggle going here, meaning the passing game will have to go through Coleman (who will see a lot of Trent McDuffie, who is playing at a very high level) and Shakir. Allen can obviously do that; it would be more difficult than if he had Moore in addition to other weapons.
James Cook – who led the NFL in rushing last season – is averaging an incredible and career-best 6.0 yards per carry so far this year, and has tagged two of four opponents with at least 135 yards on the ground. The Rams were run by San Francisco in Week 1, but since then the opposing backs have been limited in a big way. They haven’t exactly faced a killer set of running games (Giants, Broncos, Eagles) in that span, though, so they’ll have a harder time containing Cook here. Cook will obviously take some of the pressure off Allen and a potentially expendable weapon in the passing game.
When the Rams have the ball
After sputtering to just 290 total yards back in their Week 1 game in Australia, the Rams have put up at least 415 yards in each of their last three games stateside. The only thing holding them back from a real explosion offensively is turnovers, as they’ve turned the ball over twice in each of their games so far this season — including the last three where they’ve piled up all the yardage.
After throwing 46 touchdowns against just eight interceptions en route to an MVP season a year ago, Matthew Stafford has been picked off six times. Stafford completed just 61% of his passes, and he dropped from 7.9 to 7.3 yards per attempt. Stafford, of course, was without Puka Nacua for two of those games, but even with Nacua last week, he was at just 62.7% completion and 6.2 yards per attempt while not scoring and being intercepted twice. He hasn’t played up to the standard of last year.
Buffalo’s defense, however, has been weak through the air early in the Jim Leonhard era. The Bills got a good pass rush from Greg Rousseau (who led the league with six sacks and tied for third with 29 total pressures) and great play inside from Deone Walker (19 pressures and three batted passes) but the back end was leaking, with opponents accounting for the sixth-most passing yards in the league by four weeks, including interceptions in just four weeks.
Christian Benford will help return to the lineup after he missed last week’s loss against New England, but the Bills could still have their hands full with Nacua and Davante Adams — the latter looking resurgent (career-best 10.3 yards per target) after repeated red-zone touchdown connections were overshadowed by a significant drop in efficiency last year. (He averaged just 6.9 yards per target, the fourth-worst mark of his 13-year career.) Adams was quiet last week against Philly (four catches for 32 yards on nine targets), but over the past two games, he’s caught 15 passes for 332 yards and two touchdowns in Nacua’s absence.
Notably, the Bills have given up the sixth-most catches, seventh-most yards and second-most touchdowns to running backs as pass-catchers so far this season. The Rams usually rarely target their running backs with the pass, but that changed with Kyren Williams. Watch out for him under the routes.
Williams and Blake Corum were also very good on the ground, combining for 87 carries for 456 yards and three touchdowns. That’s an average of 5.2 yards per carry, and each has success rates above 50% while Williams leads the league with a 64.8% rate on his runs. The Bills have given up just 0.98 yards before contact per carry so far this year, according to Tru Media, but they’ve allowed 3.05 after contact thanks to one of the highest missed-tackle rates in the league. They can’t allow Williams and Corum to get out of their grip on it.
Prediction
So far this season, the Rams have alternated between looking like the Rams team we’ve come to expect and a different version than that. This is largely due to injuries that have led to inconsistencies on both sides of the ball. However, the pass defense is much better, and the return of Aaron Donald should help the run defense. I don’t think Buffalo has anyone who can deal with the trio of Puka Nacua-Davante Adams-Kyren Williams, so the Rams should put some points on the board here.
Pick: Rams 28, Bills 24