Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray popped up on the injury report with a knee injury. He was a full participant.
Murray played all 61 snaps in Sunday’s loss to the Bills. He rushed for 57 yards on five carries and completed 21 of 31 passes for 162 yards with a touchdown.
Murray missed nine games last season while working his way back from a torn anterior cruciate ligament that happened in Week 14 of the 2022 season.
Cornerback Max Melton (concussion) was the only player to miss practice.
Wide receiver Xavier Weaver (oblique) was limited.
Head coach Sean McVay said the move was coming on Monday but the Rams have made it official on Wednesday.
Puka Nacua is one of three players Los Angeles has placed on injured reserve, which means Nacua will be out for at least the next four weeks.
Nacua aggravated the knee injury he dealt with in training camp during Sunday’s season opener against the Lions. He caught four passes for 35 yards before he had to exit the contest.
Los Angeles also placed offensive linemen Steve Avila (ankle) and Joe Noteboom (ankle) on IR.
As corresponding moves, the Rams signed offensive lineman Gerson Christian to the active roster off their own practice squad and signed offensive lineman Dylan McMahon off of the Eagles practice squad.
The club also brought back veteran defensive back Ahkello Witherspoon to their practice squad after he started all 17 games for the club last year. He finished the season with 14 passes defensed and three interceptions.
Wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. came into the league with people hailing him as a can’t-miss prospect and the Cardinals clearly felt that way because they used the fourth overall pick in the draft to secure his services.
Harrison was missing for much of Sunday’s opener against the Bills, however. Harrison was targeted with three passes and caught one pass for three yards, although he appeared to be open near the end zone on a play when Kyler Murray threw elsewhere near the end of the 34-28 loss.
On Tuesday, offensive coordinator Drew Petzing said “the plan” is to get the ball in Harrison’s hands more often.
“Certainly he is on the forefront of our minds in terms of getting him the ball,” Petzing said, via the team’s website. “I think [the Bills] did some things to take him away and certainly I could’ve called some plays to get him more involved early but I thought it was a good start. We have some work to do.”
Petzing added that it is not Murray’s “job to get certain people the ball or worry about how a guy is doing in the flow of the game.” He said that he has “to do that with the way I call the game” and it sounds like that will be a bigger part of the team’s approach against the Rams in Week Two.
The Rams were down to their backup center, rookie Beaux Limmer, during Sunday’s season opener against the Lions. They now have another healthy center.
The Rams are signing Dylan McMahon off the Eagles’ practice squad, McMahon’s agent, Whitney Holtzman, announced on social media.
The Eagles made McMahon a sixth-round draft pick this spring after he started 44 games at N.C. State and saw time at both guard and center.
After being waived out of the preseason, McMahon signed back to the Eagles’ practice squad.
For the season opener, the Eagles elevated Nick Gates from the practice squad, instead of McMahon, to be the backup center behind Cam Jurgens.
After two games, the dynamic kickoff looked to be a dud. After one full week of games, there were more kick returns than expected.
Rams coach Sean McVay wasn’t among those who opted to roll the dice on the risk of a long return. The Rams kicked off six times on Sunday night. Each resulted in a touchback and a first and 10 for the Lions at their own 30.
Why did McVay kick it away?
“I just think the unforeseen,” McVay told reporters on Monday. “I think knowing that . . . there’s not as many layers in the coverage. There’s possible vertical seams. I think we felt like the confidence that we did have in our defense to put the ball on the 30. It was more about just a lot of the unforeseen consequences. I wasn’t truly surprised that was kind of the approach from the league. There were a lot of discussions that I was kind of involved in . . . . That was kind of the approach just not really knowing. It felt like that was the smart thing for us.”
There will be situations in which it makes sense to try to pin the other team deep in its own end of the field. There also will be situations in which it makes sense to bang the ball out of the end zone.
The Bills had a situation like that on Sunday, with an 11-point lead and 8:44 to play. The Bills put the ball in play, the Cardinals returned the kick for a touchdown, and with the two-point conversion the margin was trimmed to three.
That was a mistake in strategy. Coaches like McVay have decided not to even go down that path. Kick it deep, give up the 30, and move on.
The Rams used a third-round pick on running back Blake Corum with the idea that they’d use him to share reps and carries with Kyren Williams. On Sunday night, that didn’t happen.
Williams had 21 touches (with 18 carries). Corum had none. That’s because Williams was on the field for 91 percent of the offensive snaps (71 total). And Corum was there for none.
So what happened?
“I think each game is going to be its own entity,” coach Sean McVay told reporters on Monday, the day after the 26-20 overtime loss to the Lions. “It was a very unique circumstance because when we got so many of our [offensive] linemen banged up, it limited some of the different — basically, we didn’t operate off anything that our game plan was. We had to truly just change in the middle of that game plan. When there are some things that are unforeseen, you’re going to go with guys that you trust and that you know. I think the way that some of the drives unfolded where there were long breaks in between. . . . I think that’s why you saw our running back and tight end rotation reflected as such. Colby Parkinson played 69 snaps. I believe Kyren played 71 when you look at it. I want to get Ronnie [Rivers] a little bit more involved. I want to be able to get Blake [Corum] involved as well. . . . [B]ased on how the game unfolded, it was very unique for a lot of different reasons, none of which probably suit what you guys are really looking for but that was not how we anticipated the rotation to go.”
As Simms noted during Monday’s PFT Live, the injuries on the offensive line forced the Rams to use the short passing game as a replacement for the running game. Ultimately, the Rams had 23 rushing attempts (three went to receivers) and 51 pass plays (49 throws and two sacks). That’s a 68.9/31.1 percent split.
Regardless, the patchwork, on-the-fly game strategy almost worked. Down 17-3, the Rams took a 20-17 lead — and had a chance to slam the door before the Lions forced overtime and repeatedly crammed the ball down the Aaron Donald-less defense’s throat to win with an opening-drive OT walk-off.
The opening Sunday night of the 2024 NFL season drew a big TV audience.
The Rams-Lions game drew 22.7 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, NBC Sports announced.
That’s a 3 percent increase from last season’s first Sunday Night Football game, a matchup of the Cowboys and Giants that drew 22.0 million viewers.
Thursday night’s season opener between the Chiefs and Ravens also saw a viewership increase over last season’s opener, so the NFL is off to a strong start on the TV ratings front. Viewership totals from Sunday afternoon’s games on CBS and Fox are not yet available.
NFL ratings sometimes decline in election years when viewers shift from watching sports to news, but the early returns from the 2024 season suggest that football ratings are not taking a hit two months before the election.
A report earlier on Monday characterized receiver Puka Nacua as week-to-week with his knee injury. But Nacua is going to be out for at least a month.
Rams head coach Sean McVay told reporters in his Monday news conference that Nacua has a PCL sprain and will be placed on injured reserve.
Nacua re-aggravated the injury he dealt with during training camp in the first half of Sunday’s season opener against Detroit. Via Greg Beacham of the Associated Press, McVay said the recurrence “is a little more significant” than the original injury.
Nacua, 23, caught four passes for 35 yards before he had to exit the contest.
Last season, Nacua set rookie records as he tallied 105 receptions for 1,486 yards with six touchdowns.
The Rams also have several injury concerns along their offensive line. Via multiple reporters, McVay noted guard Steve Avila suffered an MCL sprain and is a candidate for injured reserve. Backup left tackle Joe Noteboom — who started on Sunday for the suspended Alaric Jackson — will be out for a few weeks with a high-ankle sprain. Right guard Kevin Dotson also suffered an ankle sprain and is day-to-day.
McVay said the club will look at external candidates for offensive linemen. Right tackle Rob Havenstein was inactive on Sunday with an ankle injury.
Cornerback Cobie Durant is also day-to-day with a toe injury.
The Rams will be on the road again to face the Cardinals in Week 2.
The Rams played the second half and overtime without wide receiver Puka Nacua on Sunday night and they may be without him in the near future as well.
Nacua was ruled out after hurting his knee in the second quarter of the 26-20 Lions win and Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that Nacua aggravated the injury that sidelined him this summer. Nacua is still undergoing tests, but is considered week-to-week at the moment.
Nacua had four catches for 35 yards before leaving the game.
It’s the second straight year that the Rams have dealt with an injury at wide receiver in early September. Cooper Kupp went on injured reserve ahead of Week One last year, which opened the door to Nacua to begin making his way to rookie records in receptions and receiving yards. Kupp had 14 catches for 110 yards on Sunday and will likely continue to be heavily targeted as long as Nacua is out of action.
There’s some more clarity to one of the injuries along the Rams’ offensive line.
Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, Avila is believed to have suffered an MCL sprain during last night’s season opener against the Lions.
He is set to undergo an MRI and further tests on Monday to determine the full extent of his injury.
Avila did not play after the first half of the eventual overtime loss, as the Rams had to make several shifts along their offensive line. The Rams were already playing their backup right and left tackle due to injury and suspension, respectively.
A second-round pick in last year’s draft, Avila played every offensive snap for Los Angeles as a rookie.
Rams star receiver Puka Nacua also suffered a knee injury during the second quarter of the season opener, with head coach Sean McVay saying after the contest that he did not have an update on Nacua’s condition.