No Touchdowns, No Problem: Ryland's Six Field Goals Lift Cardinals Over Rams 18-16 at SoFi

INGLEWOOD · SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2026

Arizona did not score a touchdown on Sunday. Arizona won anyway. The Arizona Cardinals beat the Los Angeles Rams 18-16 at SoFi Stadium on the strength of six Chad Ryland field goals, the last of them a 43-yarder as time expired, according to Reuters. In a league that celebrates offensive fireworks, the Cardinals just won a road game the old-fashioned way: control the clock, survive your own red-zone failures and trust your kicker six separate times. Both teams left the field at 2-4, but only one of them left it celebrating.

The oddity of the win deserves to be stated plainly. Arizona went 0-for-6 in the red zone on touchdowns and still scored 18 points, because Ryland never missed. Six field goals is a fragile way to build a score — every stalled drive is a small failure — but it is also a kind of consistency: six trips that produced points, six times the Cardinals' special teams finished the job the offense could not. The Rams, who scored the game's only two touchdowns, will spend the week wondering how that math worked against them. Our earlier report on Rams kicker Blake Grupe's injury explains part of it; the rest was Ryland.

Brissett's final-minute drive, and a flag that will be debated

Jacoby Brissett finished 24-of-35 for 218 yards with one interception, and his most important work came in the final minute, Reuters reported. Trailing 16-15 after a late Los Angeles touchdown, Brissett led a 40-yard winning drive, keyed by a 21-yard completion to Jalen Brooks. Then came the play Ram fans will argue about all week: a 15-yard unnecessary-roughness flag on Rams cornerback Josh Wallace for glancing helmet contact as Brooks went to the ground, a call NBC Sports described as controversial. The penalty put Arizona in range, and Ryland did the rest from 43 yards as the clock hit zero.

Arizona's supporting numbers explain how the Cardinals stayed close enough to steal it. Bam Knight ran for 80 yards on 15 carries, and Trey McBride caught seven passes for 53 yards, according to Reuters. Most tellingly, Arizona controlled the ball for 34:52 to Los Angeles' 25:08 and outgained the Rams 338-286 in total yards, Touchdown Wire reported. A team that dominates possession that thoroughly usually wins the kicking game too, simply because it plays more of the afternoon on the opponent's side of the field. That is exactly how a six-field-goal win happens.

Stafford delivered late — and it still was not enough

Matthew Stafford's line, on its own, reads like a winning one: 25-of-33 for 222 yards and two touchdowns, Reuters reported. He threw a 15-yard touchdown to Blake Corum in the second quarter, then, with the game slipping away, a 6-yard touchdown to Colby Parkinson with 47 seconds left. With punter Ethan Evans converting the extra point, Los Angeles led 16-15 and needed one defensive stop to win. It never got it. Puka Nacua caught six passes for 80 yards and Davante Adams added three catches for 39 yards, though Adams hopped off late in the fourth quarter with an apparent leg injury, according to NBC Sports — a concern the Rams can ill afford at 2-4.

The reason a punter was kicking that extra point is the game's strangest subplot. Rams kicker Blake Grupe, who had only just been signed after Harrison Mevis was released, made a 44-yard field goal and then injured his knee in the first quarter making a tackle on a kickoff, Reuters reported. He did not return, and Evans took over the kicking duties the rest of the way. Evans made the extra point that briefly gave Los Angeles the lead, which tells you he handled the emergency well. But a team that loses its kicker in the first quarter loses field-goal range, fourth-down confidence and margin for error all at once — and the Rams lost by two points in a game decided by a kicker.

Both teams are 2-4, but the wins live at SoFi

Here is the footnote that makes Arizona's afternoon feel almost scripted: both of the Cardinals' wins this season have come at SoFi Stadium, Reuters noted, after a Week 1 win there over the Chargers. Whatever it is about that building, Arizona will take it. At 2-4, the Cardinals are not contenders yet, but a road win built on ball control and a perfect kicker is the kind of result that steadies a locker room. Follow them on the Arizona Cardinals team page.

For Los Angeles, also 2-4, the loss stacks frustrations: a controversial flag, a kicker injured making a tackle, a star receiver hopping off late and a go-ahead touchdown with 47 seconds left that still was not enough. The Rams did the hardest thing in football — scored late to take the lead — and lost anyway to a team that never found the end zone. That is a hard one to file away quickly. See the Los Angeles Rams team page, our NFL hub and the Sports desk for what comes next for both clubs.