Despite losing by nine points and getting shut out in the second half, the Los Angeles Rams were in a great position to win the game on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles. They held a 14-10 lead thanks to Puka Nacua’s 22-yard touchdown with 32 seconds remaining in the first half, but that lead was short-lived.
Los Angeles allowed the Eagles to go down the field and score a touchdown as time expired in the second quarter, putting Philadelphia up 17-14 before halftime. It was a disastrous end to the first half, one that had Aaron Donald livid.
The fact that the Eagles marched down the field and gained 75 yards in four plays – with two costly penalties committed by Derion Kendrick – ate at Donald for more than a day, calling it unacceptable and something that really frustrated him.
“I ain’t going to lie, that’s what I was frustrated about. I was mad about that. That lingered on me until about Monday night, honestly,” Donald said on Thursday. “But again, we gave up some plays and with some penalties that hurt us and some things that we could’ve done better. We got to try to eliminate that type of stuff, but we can’t have that as a defense. That’s not us, that can’t be acceptable. That just doesn’t sit well with me. We’re going to fix those things. We’re going to clean those things up and we’ll be better at that.”
That touchdown by the Eagles completely flipped the game on its head, taking away the Rams’ first lead of the day in the blink of an eye. All they had to do was make one stop in order to maintain their lead going into halftime, and they were going to get the ball to start the third quarter, too.
Had the Rams gotten a stop and then scored a touchdown to open the second half, they could’ve gone up 11 points on Philadelphia. Instead, they trailed by four and never scored another point.
Kendrick’s horse collar tackle after allowing a 36-yard catch to A.J. Brown, and then his pass interference penalty on the very next play, helped set up Jalen Hurts’ 1-yard touchdown as time expired, taking away any momentum the Rams had.
It’s not a sequence that will sink their season, but it was an understandably frustrating moment for Donald and the entire defense.