A Super Bowl Preview Leaves the Rams at 2-3

Tyler Bass hit a 45-yard field goal with 1:55 left in overtime, and the Buffalo Bills beat the Los Angeles Rams 37-34 at SoFi Stadium. The Monday Night Football billing was Josh Allen against Matthew Stafford, the last two NFL MVPs, in a game that lasted nearly 70 minutes.

It ended with Rams coach Sean McVay saying his kicking unit cost Los Angeles the night, and with his team at 2-3 in the stadium slated for Super Bowl LXI on February 14, 2027.

A Monday Night in the Super Bowl Building

Owners already voted to put Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium, the Rams’ home, on February 14, 2027. Monday’s crowd of 73,882 watched the two clubs that keep getting named as February guests play in that building in Week 5, and only one of them left in first place.

Buffalo is 4-1 and still first in the AFC East. Los Angeles has not won two games in a row and is 1-2 at home. The night had six lead changes and a fourth quarter that finally matched the pregame hype, after a first half that produced 20 points, two touchdowns, and nine penalties.

THE NIGHT BY THE NUMBERS

• Combined points: 71, with 38 of them in the fourth quarter and overtime.
• Combined yards: 890, on 57 Bills plays and 78 Rams plays.
• Lead changes: 6, after Buffalo led 13-7 at halftime and 19-14 after three quarters.
• Records after: Bills 4-1 (2-0 on the road), Rams 2-3 (1-2 at home).

Allen, the 2024 MVP, completed 12 of 19 passes for 210 yards, one touchdown, and one interception, and he ran 10 times for 121 yards and a score. Stafford, the reigning MVP, went 40 of 54 for 383 yards and three touchdowns, his third straight game with at least 50 attempts. The quarterbacks were the advertised show. The kicking game closed it.

McVay’s Third-Down Call Left a 48-Yard Problem

Special teams bit the Rams on the first snap, when Bills returner Ray Davis took the opening kickoff 70 yards and Bass knocked through a 49-yard field goal. Harrison Mevis then missed a 50-yard try wide left in the first quarter. In overtime, with a chance to win it from 48 yards, he never got a clean look at the posts.

Greg Rousseau, the Bills defensive end, got a hand on the ball. NFL Research says only two walk-off field-goal tries have been blocked in the last two seasons, and both came against Los Angeles. Last season it was Joshua Karty against Philadelphia. Monday it was Mevis.

On the play before that kick, McVay faced third-and-5 from the Buffalo 30 and handed the ball to Kyren Williams, who was stopped for no gain. Stafford had just taken the Rams on three straight touchdown drives. McVay still took him off the field.

I’m sick that we came up short, and I’ll be regretting kicking that and not having a better call to be able to go for it on third down and go to fourth or whatever it was. And that’s on me.

Sean McVay, Rams coach, postgame

He also said it had been a while since he had been this pissed after a game, and that the kicking game, especially the extra points and field goals, was not even close to good enough. “It cost us the game tonight,” McVay said. He said Los Angeles will evaluate everything about the unit.

The Rams have had three field goals blocked since the start of last season, tied for the most in the league. They have 81 missed or blocked kicks under McVay since 2017, including the playoffs, the third-most in the NFL in that span. Mevis, who went from Missouri to the Birmingham Stallions, the New York Jets, and then Los Angeles in 2025, grades as 26th among 32 qualified kickers this season on a 57.3 field-goal mark.

“I felt like I hit it good,” Mevis said. “That’s all I can tell you. I mean, I hit it good, gave it a chance. I’ll have to look.” The clock stopped before the try while McVay argued the spot, which some national voices treated as the officials icing him. The reset still gave Los Angeles a full play clock. Rousseau blocked it anyway.

WHAT BEAT THE RAMS BEFORE THE FINAL KICK

• The return: Davis’s 70-yard opening kickoff return set up Bass’s 49-yarder and a 3-0 Bills lead.
• The early miss: Mevis pushed a 50-yard attempt wide left in the first quarter.
• The overtime block: Rousseau swatted the 48-yard try after Williams gained nothing on third-and-5.

Puka Nacua, who caught 17 balls for 138 yards and a score, put the night back on the offense. “We go out there and we give the opportunity for our special teams to kind of go out there and get a field goal,” Nacua said. “We got to be able to execute, and if that’s not what we wanted to do, we got to find a way to convert on the critical downs.”

Why Josh Allen’s First Overtime Win Took a Blocked Kick

Allen walked in 0-7 in overtime, including three playoff losses that ended Buffalo’s season. In those seven games he averaged 292 passing yards and 75 rushing yards and still went home. Rousseau’s block is the only reason that streak ended at SoFi.

The Rams won the toss and chose to defend, so Buffalo got the ball first. Khalil Shakir turned a catch into 57 yards at 21.89 mph, with safety Kamren Kinchens closing at 21.54 mph and clipping his feet short of the end zone. On the next snap, James Cook fumbled. Linebacker Nate Landman forced it, and Aaron Donald recovered at the Los Angeles 20.

Stafford then moved the Rams 50 yards to the Buffalo 30. After the block, Allen ran 19 yards and 13 yards on back-to-back scrambles, 32 yards that put Bass on a 45-yard line. Joe Brady, in his first season as Bills coach, sent the kicker out on second down with nearly two minutes still on the clock, because both teams had already had the ball and the next score ended it.

“The confidence I had in T-Bass was, ‘Hey, 45 yards, he’s going to make this kick,’” Brady said in his Brady on kicking on second down session. Bass drilled it, ran, and waited for the officials to signal it good. He finished 3 of 3 on field goals from 49, 23, and 45 yards, missed one extra point, and scored 11 points. He also missed the entire 2025 season after core muscle surgery.

I haven’t been a fan of overtime games in my career, so we get the first one. We’ll take it.

Josh Allen, Bills quarterback, to Scott Van Pelt

Allen is 1-7 in overtime now. Across the fourth quarter and extra period he was 5-for-5 for 121 passing yards, ran six times for 91 yards and a touchdown, and threw a two-point conversion. He called it his first overtime win and said the defense and special teams had to make a play. Rousseau did.

54 Passes Were Not Enough in Inglewood

Los Angeles outgained Buffalo and never turned the ball over. Stafford completed 40 passes, Nacua set a career high with 17 receptions on 24 targets, one short of the franchise mark Tom Fears set in 1950, and Davante Adams caught two touchdowns from 4 and 5 yards. The Rams still left 2-3 because they ran for 77 yards and asked Mevis to finish a game Stafford had already rewritten.

HOW THE TWO SIDES MOVED THE BALL

Those splits are in the official Week 5 box score, including Stafford’s 54 attempts next to 77 rushing yards. Buffalo’s 14 rushing first downs dwarf Los Angeles’s 6. The Rams converted both of their fourth downs and all five red-zone trips and still lost because the third phase and one third-down run undid a clean offensive night.

Adams now has 45 regular-season touchdowns inside the 5-yard line, the most on record, and his 4-yard score in the second quarter was his 96th career touchdown inside 20 yards, including playoffs, before the 5-yarder made it 97. Nacua kept winning short throws even when the building knew the ball was going to him. Tyler Higbee added 5 catches for 83 yards, Blake Corum ran for a score, and Williams finished 16 carries for 49 yards plus the 1-yard plunge with 4 seconds left in regulation that tied the game at 34-34.

James Cook’s Fumble Almost Buried Buffalo

Cook ran 25 times for 111 yards and two touchdowns, and he still left the game as the Bills player most in need of the win. He fumbled twice and lost the second one, in overtime, a play after Shakir’s 57-yard catch. He now has four fumbles this season and two lost.

THE LAST STRETCH AT SOFI

1. 7:14 left in the fourth: Los Angeles ties it at 27 after an eight-play, 71-yard drive.
2. 1:39 left in the fourth: Cook scores from 5 yards to put Buffalo up 34-27, capping an 11-play, 71-yard march that included Allen’s 21-yard run on second-and-17.
3. 4 seconds left in regulation: Williams scores from a yard out after Stafford goes 63 yards in eight plays, 34-34.
4. Overtime, Bills’ first snap series: Shakir’s 57-yard catch, then Cook’s lost fumble, Donald recovering at the Rams 20.
5. Overtime, 4:11 remaining: Rousseau blocks Mevis from 48 yards.
6. 1:55 left in overtime: Bass hits from 45 after five plays and 35 yards, 37-34.

After the teams scored on five straight fourth-quarter possessions, the second half stopped being a field-position game. NFL recap tracking had Allen’s 1-yard run, Stafford’s 5-yard throw to Adams, Cook’s 5-yard run, and Williams’ 1-yard run stacked on top of Nacua’s 2-yard score that made it 20-19. Keon Coleman had caught a 7-yard touchdown that put Buffalo up 19-14 heading into the fourth.

Cook’s 17-yard run in the second quarter had made it 13-7. The fumbles are now the tax on that production. Allen threw an interception as well and, by his own accounting, could have had another. Buffalo is going to live with those players. Ball security is the part that almost handed McVay an escape.

Buffalo Is 4-1 With the Warts Attached

This is Buffalo’s sixth 4-1 start in eight seasons, and the first under Brady. It did not look like a 4-1 tape for long stretches. The Bills were flagged 13 times for 112 yards, went 2 of 7 on third down, turned it over twice, and played without receivers DJ Moore and Joshua Palmer. Ty Johnson led them with 4 catches for 72 yards. Shakir had 3 for 80. The passing game was a 12-completion night.

Allen said he did not throw it very well, especially in the first half, and that he was fighting mechanical stuff. “I want him to just play,” Brady said. “His good is damn good and it’s good enough.” The good on Monday was the run. Allen’s 121 yards were the second-most of his career, behind 135 at Miami in Week 13 of 2018, and it was his fourth career 100-yard rushing game. He said more than 100 of those yards came on scrambles when the Rams’ coverage held up and the pocket didn’t.

“That’s the beautiful thing about football: You get another drive,” Allen said after Cook’s fumble. “You’re hoping someone on defense or special teams can make a play, and that’s what happened. Greg Rousseau made a play.” Bass, who had already made kicks of 49 and 23 yards in the first quarter, then did the last job on the list.

Winning this way is not a weekly plan. Ten designed and scramble runs from the quarterback, 12 completions, and a blocked kick is a night you survive, not a night you photocopy. Brady still took the field-goal points on second down instead of hunting a touchdown with 1:55 left, because the rules after both possessions made three points enough.

The NFC West Did Not Pause for Los Angeles

The Rams are third in the NFC West, behind the 5-0 San Francisco 49ers and the 3-2 Seattle Seahawks. They are under.500 after five games for the fourth time in five seasons. Stafford can still throw the league into a corner, and Nacua can still catch 17 balls on a Monday. None of that moved them a game closer to February in their own building.

Los Angeles has a home date with the Arizona Cardinals in Week 6, then the Las Vegas Raiders and the Chargers, a stretch McVay’s club can still turn into a 5-3 start. The kicking job is the item on the desk now. Mevis went 0 for 2 on field goals and heard his coach say the whole operation will be evaluated. Williams’ stuffed third down is the call McVay already regrets.

Buffalo leaves California with Allen’s overtime monkey off his back and with Bass, a year removed from a lost season, as the last man on the field. The Rams leave with a 383-yard night from Stafford, a career game from Nacua, and a 2-3 record in the stadium that will host Super Bowl LXI on February 14. If these two meet again that Sunday, Los Angeles will have had to climb out of a hole it dug on a kick it did not have to try.