Victory Monday in Arizona: Cardinals Savor a Win Built Entirely on Chad Ryland's Six Field Goals

There are prettier ways to win a football game, but on Monday, nobody in the Arizona Cardinals’ building was apologizing for the aesthetics. Arizona spent Victory Monday savoring an 18-16 win over the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, October 18 — a win built entirely on six Chad Ryland field goals, capped by his 43-yarder as time expired, according to the Associated Press. No touchdowns. No style points. Just a losing streak buried, a division streak buried with it, and a head coach still marveling a day later at the one-and-a-half seconds at a time that saved his team’s season from sliding any further.

The numbers behind the relief are stark. As Cards Wire reported, Sunday’s win snapped three separate skids at once: a four-game losing streak, an eight-game losing streak inside the NFC West, and a three-game skid against the Rams specifically. Both teams left SoFi at 2-4, but they left in opposite directions — Arizona is now 2-0 all-time at SoFi Stadium, according to Cards Wire, and for the first time in more than a month, the Cardinals’ Monday was about what went right.

LaFleur on Ryland: “Six kicks go right up the middle”

Head coach Mike LaFleur used his Monday, October 19 session at the team facility to appreciate the operation that produced all 18 of Arizona’s points. “Saw the same thing you saw, six kicks go right up the middle,” LaFleur said, according to the Arizona Republic’s October 19 notebook. “I don’t know how to coach a kicker, I never will. The operation looked smooth. It’s the dirtiest one-and-a-half seconds — thankless job having to block for those.”

That last line is a coach tipping his cap to the least glamorous unit on the roster: the snapper, the holder and the protection that has to hold for the most violent second and a half in a kicking play, six separate times, with the last one deciding a division game on the road. LaFleur also revealed on Monday what he had told his players after the game — that he had not planned on any of this. According to Cards Wire, LaFleur told the team postgame, “I didn’t plan on using our punt team,” and added, “I never want to see six kicks again unless they’re extra points.” It is the perfect Victory Monday joke because it is also true: the plan was touchdowns, the reality was Ryland, and the standings do not grade the difference.

338 yards, five red-zone trips, zero touchdowns

The reason Ryland kicked six times is the part of Sunday the Cardinals still have to fix. Arizona’s offense produced 338 total yards and reached the red zone five times — with zero touchdowns to show for it, including three goal-to-go situations, according to Cards Wire. Against a better finishing opponent, that profile loses. On Sunday, it was rescued by the run game and the tight end: Bam Knight carried 15 times for 80 yards and added two catches for 18 yards, a team-high 98 scrimmage yards with rookie Jeremiyah Love sidelined by an ankle injury, Cards Wire reported. Trey McBride, who entered the week as the NFL’s reception leader, added seven catches for 53 yards, and Michael Wilson caught four passes for 30 yards, according to Cards Wire.

Quarterback Jacoby Brissett’s day will not lead any highlight reel either, but it ended with a career note that had been a long time coming: the final drive was Brissett’s first fourth-quarter comeback and game-winning drive in 18 starts with Arizona, according to Cards Wire. Eighteen starts is a long wait for a signature late drive, and Brissett finally got his with the season tilting — a loss would have meant five straight defeats and sole possession of the NFC West basement narrative heading into Week 7.

The defense made six field goals enough

Six field goals only win when the other sideline cannot reach 19, and Arizona’s defense made sure of it. The Cardinals held the Rams under 300 total yards, stopped Los Angeles on fourth down twice, recorded a takeaway and strung together five straight scoreless defensive series, according to Cards Wire. In his weekly grades, John Breech of CBS Sports gave Arizona’s defensive performance a B, as SportsWire summarized — the kind of grade that looks modest until you remember it was earned on the road, against a division rival, with an offense that never once crossed the goal line to help.

A final drive that needed two breaks — and got both

Even Ryland’s winner needed help arriving. The closing sequence turned on two breaks that went Arizona’s way, as Cards Wire detailed: a Colby Parkinson touchdown call was overturned, handing the Cardinals 47 seconds back, and an unnecessary-roughness penalty tacked 15 yards onto Jalen Brooks’ 21-yard reception, shortening the field Brissett had to cover. From there, the offense did just enough and the kicking operation did the rest — smooth, as LaFleur put it a day later, for the dirtiest second and a half in football. The full game story is in Previously’s Sunday report on Ryland’s six field goals at SoFi.

History underlined how strange the win was. According to Heavy, an all-field-goals victory over the Rams is only the second of its kind in 90 years — and the first also came against the Rams franchise, in its St. Louis era. Ninety years of Cardinals-Rams football, and twice the winning team never scored a touchdown. Sunday’s edition now owns a permanent place in that footnote, and Arizona will take the footnote over the alternative every time.

What Victory Monday actually changes

One win does not repair a 2-4 start, and LaFleur’s own jokes acknowledged the flaw inside the celebration: an offense that settles for six field goals is an offense living on borrowed time, and Denver’s defense will have watched every red-zone snap. But streaks compound in the NFL — four straight losses becomes a season’s identity faster than any coach admits — and Arizona stopped the compounding on the road, in the division, with its kicker as its only scorer and its defense as the reason that was enough. Next up, the Cardinals host the Denver Broncos in Week 7, according to The Spun and Cards Wire, with a chance to turn one strange Sunday into something resembling momentum. For one Monday, at least, the Cardinals’ building got to enjoy the rarest thing in a losing season: a Victory Monday that was actually about a victory. More coverage is on the Previously sports front and in Previously’s midday report on Jeremiyah Love’s ankle, which shaped Sunday’s backfield.

Sources: Associated Press — game result and final score, October 18, 2026; Arizona Republic — Mike LaFleur Victory Monday notebook, October 19, 2026; Cards Wire (USA Today) — streaks, statistics, final-drive details and LaFleur postgame remarks; CBS Sports / SportsWire — defensive grade; Heavy — all-field-goals history; The Spun — Week 7 opponent.