INGLEWOOD — On Wednesday, Nate Landman called his shot.
The linebacker, whom the Rams signed as a free agent this spring, told his teammates he was going to get the first forced fumble of the season. It was a move they had become deeply familiar with, watching him punch balls out all of training camp.
But they could not have predicted the magnitude of the moment Sunday when Landman’s promise would come true.
Leading the Houston Texans by five in their season opener on Sunday, the Rams found themselves on their heels. The Texans were driving at the Rams’ 25 with 1:51 to play. A pass from quarterback C.J. Stroud to Dare Ogunbowale in the right flat appeared to move Houston into the red zone.
But Landman, poised like a basketball defender, punched with his right hand and ricocheted the ball onto the turf at SoFi Stadium. Defensive lineman Braden Fiske extended like Spider-Man with his left hand to collect the loose ball, and with it put the Rams one first down away from a 14-9 win.
“I actually kind of blacked out when it happened. My instinct was to run to the teammates on the sideline and celebrate with them,” Landman said. “I think it just shows what we’re capable of and there’s a lot of room for improvement.”
Going into the weekend, a good amount of attention was going to be paid to what happened the first time Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford and his ailing back took a hit.
That concern was alleviated on the first snap. Stafford was taken to the ground, then quickly pulled up by right tackle Rob Havenstein and went about his day, passing for 245 yards and surpassing 60,000 passing yards in his career.
But it turned out the rest of the offense was at risk against the physical Texans defense, too. Receiver Puka Nacua and tight end Colby Parkinson both temporarily exited before returning, with Nacua contributing 10 catches for 130 yards while taking the kind of beating you’d usually expect of a running back. Left guard Steve Avila exited the game with an ankle injury, only to return in the fourth quarter when right guard Kevin Dotson exited with the same ailment.
“There was a lot of reasons for them to think, oh man, things aren’t going necessarily in our favor. But I never felt our group flinch,” head coach Sean McVay said. “That’s going to be a separator for us if we continue to callous ourselves in the right way as we navigate through this season.”
The rotating door on offense led to some sloppiness, probably exacerbated by the four weeks of practice Stafford missed with his back injury. But they got on the board with a fourth-down touchdown run by Kyren Williams at the end of the first half, before tight end Davis Allen added a 13-yard score out of 12-personnel to open the third quarter.
But that was all the scoring the Rams could manage, and instead of closing the game, the offense made mistakes. A wild snap that Stafford had to collect near his own goal line, for example. Or a Parkinson red-zone fumble that, instead of putting the game away, put the Texans offense back on the field with 4:09 to play, setting up Landman’s heroics.
Even after the linebacker gave the ball back to the Rams, they almost put the defense back on the field with an offensive holding call. Williams needed two tough runs and Nacua gained 24 yards on third down to avoid that party foul.
But as the Rams offense went through its growing pains, the defense held strong. The group limited the Texans to 2-for-9 on third down. After Houston avoided the rush early with quick passes designed to get the ball out of Stroud’s hand quickly, the Rams started to get home with sacks from Byron Young, Jaylen McCollough and Tyler Davis.
And the Rams made the Texans one-dimensional, with their run defense – so maligned a year ago – holding Houston running backs to 3.7 yards per carry as free-agent addition Poona Ford sucked up blockers on the interior.
“He a dog,” linebacker Omar Speights said of Ford. “Like, they can’t move him off them doubles. And then you single block, I’m going to pray for you. So it’s dope playing off of him, for sure.”
The defense wasn’t perfect; Landman almost didn’t need to make his strip but a third-down roughing-the-passer penalty on Kobie Turner kept the Texans on the field.
But for a season opener, this was a tone-setting kind of win for the Rams and their defense.
“We already have confidence in ourselves from the work that we put in, the way that we play off of each other, stuff like that,” Speights said. “Putting in the work in the game, that only gives you more confidence.”