Playing without their top two receivers, the Los Angeles Rams made four trips to the red zone. Kyren Williams scored their only touchdown. That wasn’t enough. Not for Williams or the rest of the Rams.
Williams had another good game on Sunday, finishing with 94 yards on 19 carries. But the Rams were disappointed about their missed chances after Joshua Karty kicked four field goals in a 24-18 loss to the Chicago Bears.
“I think there were little things in the game, even for myself, that we could have been better on,” Williams said, “to allow the execution to be better on the offensive side of the ball and be able to put more points on the board.”
The Rams (1-3) were once again without star receivers Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua. Kupp missed his second straight game because of an ankle injury. Nacua was put on injured reserve after he re-injured a sprained ligament in his right knee during a loss to Detroit on Sept. 8.
Williams, a fifth-round pick in the 2022 draft from Notre Dame, has stepped up to help the offense with Kupp and Nacua out. He has 73 carries for 258 yards and five touchdowns, plus 13 catches for 68 yards and one touchdown.
He scored three times in last weekend’s 27-24 win over San Francisco. He had a 3-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter against Chicago, cutting the Bears’ lead to 17-15.
“I thought he did a really good job,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. “I thought he impacted the game in a positive way. We’ve got to be able to consistently do that if we expect to be a quality offense.”
After Williams scored on the Rams’ last trip to the red zone against Chicago, Matthew Stafford threw an incomplete pass on the conversion attempt. The Bears then responded with D’Andre Swift’s 36-yard touchdown run, capping a five-play, 70-yard drive.