Matthew Stafford threw three touchdown passes in a 35-21 win, and that's the version of this game that will get repeated all week. The version the box score supports is stranger. Stafford threw for 195 yards on 29 attempts. His 6.7 yards per attempt is the same number Kirk Cousins posted in a 14-point loss, and the adjusted QBR column reads 81.4 for Stafford against 22.9 for Cousins — that gap, not the yardage, is the whole game.
The 35 points came from the ground and from close range. Kyren Williams carried 16 times for 99 yards and a touchdown. Blake Corum carried 17 times for 93 and a score of his own. Two of Stafford's three touchdown throws went to Davis Allen, who finished with 4 catches for 20 yards and a long of 6. That's a quarterback cashing in from the doorstep, not a quarterback dissecting a defense. Puka Nacua did the work in between: 8 catches on 10 targets for 68 yards and a touchdown, plus 2 carries for 10 yards, with a long reception of 13. Every part of this Rams passing day was compressed.
The Raiders' numbers are the inverse illusion. Cousins went 26 of 44 for 295 yards, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions, a 94.4 passer rating that will be cited all week as proof he played well. His adjusted QBR was 22.9. Tre Tucker caught 5 of 12 targets for 103 yards and a touchdown, with a long of 41, which is what a top receiver's line looks like when the offense has no other route to move the ball. Mike Washington Jr. led the Las Vegas rushing effort with 6 carries for 27 yards. Six carries, on a day the Raiders dropped back to throw 44 times. The run game was a rumor.
Los Angeles won the margins with the front. Byron Young recorded a sack, Braden Fiske recorded a sack, Omar Speights had 2 tackles for loss, and Cousins' two sacks cost 6 yards. Quentin Lake finished with 7 tackles. The final points on the play log came on Matt Gay's 36-yard field goal at 4:11 of the fourth, the last entry before the game ended, which is how a three-score game gets remembered as a two-score game.
Both teams are 3-4. The distance between them isn't 14 points or a hundred passing yards. It's that Los Angeles knows what its offense is and Las Vegas is still mistaking volume for production. Cousins' 295 will make the Raiders' passing game look solved inside the building. It isn't, and a 22.9 adjusted QBR in a game where he never threw a pick is the loudest number on the sheet.
My read, on the record: the Rams' three-touchdown day from Stafford is the least repeatable thing that happened Sunday. He won't get three scores on 195 yards most weeks. If Los Angeles keeps needing Williams at 16 carries and Corum at 17 to function, the passing line will stop flattering them and the 3-4 will start looking generous. The Raiders have the opposite problem and no run game to hide behind. Give me the Rams' structure over the Raiders' yardage, and give me the under on Cousins holding that starting job past the point where the schedule gets hard.
