Rams Suffer First Preseason Loss to Texans in Finale

Opting to sit starters and other key contributors, the Rams fall just short to the Houston Texans in their third and final preseason game.

By Austin Gage

Falling just short in their attempts to end the 2024 preseason with a spotless 3-0 record, the Los Angeles Rams dropped the preseason finale 17-15 to the Houston Texans.

Just two weeks from the start of the regular season, it was clear what the Rams and head coach Sean McVay wanted to get out of the third and final exhibition game. The first goal was to eliminate all risk of injury for starters and other key contributors, and the second was to see what players who sat on the bubble of the 53-man roster could do before final decisions were made regarding who would be present on that said roster in just over a week. 

This meant that many notable preseason names for the Rams would not play much, if any, including quarterback Stetson Bennett, who played the entire first two games, wide receiver Jordan Whittington, who ranked among the top of the entire NFL in terms of preseason receiving numbers, linebacker Omar Speights, who has impressed in the middle of the field on defense, and safety Jaylen McCollough, who has flown around the top of the defense and made pass breakup after pass breakup on top of his impressive tackling.

For the Rams who played, it was a rather unspectacular game, on both sides of the ball.  

Second-year quarterback Dresser Winn got the starting nod at quarterback and played the entire game, finishing with 72 yards on 9 for 16 passing to go along with 20 yards on the ground. 

“It felt good to get out there and get to play some ball again. Kind of slow starting some drives and that’s part of it, but once we got going, we played really well,” Winn said.

Winn could not find the endzone, but his running back on the day did.

Running back Zach Evans, who was once a five-star recruit coming out of high school as he attended Texas Christian University, tallied 14 carries for 45 yards rushing in addition to two touchdowns. In a talented backfield that includes star back Kyren Williams and highly-touted rookie Blake Corum, Evans can hope that his solid performance Saturday afternoon will save him a space on the roster behind the other stud running backs in the Los Angeles offense.

“It felt great. Today I felt like the whole offense had an attacking mindset including the O-line. I want to give a huge shout out to them boys, just keeping them boys up front pushing,” said Evans, “I felt like it was a solid day, you know there’s always stuff to build on.” 

Thanks to Evans’ first rushing touchdown midway through the second quarter, Los Angeles was able to go into halftime down just one, 10-9. Solid defensive stands from the Rams defense aided the effort in the second quarter to make sure the Texans were never able to add to that one-point lead after Evans’ four-yard score.

The 10-9 score at halftime could be attributed to an extra-point miss by rookie kicker Joshua Karty out of Stanford University. Karty, who was talked up about by McVay in the previous weeks, clanked the right upright on the extra-point attempt. After a 2023 season of inconsistent kicker play that included several names seeing attempts at securing the starting position, the last thing McVay and the Rams want to worry about is kicking issues once again.

After a slow third quarter that included several punts, the Texans scored a touchdown early in the fourth quarter to push their lead to 17-9. Thanks to a spectacular effort by former Ram running back Cam Akers that included three spin moves to evade defenders on a fourth-down conversion from a check-down pass, Houston continued their drive and eventually scored. Akers would end the game with 7 carries for 53 rushing yards to go along with 19 receiving yards. 

A stall by the Los Angeles and Houston offenses on the next two drives saw the Rams get the ball back still down 8 midway through the fourth quarter. With a command over the offense, Winn was able to drive Los Angeles inside the five-yard line, where Evans was able to capitalize and score his second rushing touchdown of the day on an inside run that saw him cross the endzone basically untouched. However, with the lead now cut to 2 and the game clock reading 3:15, the Rams decided to go for two but could not convert. The 17-15 Houston lead was not touched the remainder of the game and the Texans were able to escape with their third preseason victory.

The Rams dropped to 2-1 to end their preseason and now shift their attention to the 53-man roster. As of written date, some names have already been cut from the roster, with some including Winn, wide receiver J.J. Laap, who caught the game-winning touchdown against the Los Angeles Chargers last week, and veteran running back Boston Scott, who iced the game for the Rams in that victory against the Chargers. 

“Really proud of this group, it’s been a really fun group that has kind of come together over the last few months. We obviously have some tough decisions to make over the next handful of days but there are some things that are starting to come into clarity for us,” McVay said regarding the eventual 53-man roster that Los Angeles would be going with.

Once cuts are made and the 53-man roster is finalized, the Rams will travel to Detroit to play the Lions on Sunday night in two weeks, kicking off September 9th in the first week of the regular season. The wild-card rematch, which saw the Lions defeat the Rams 24-23, will see two Super Bowl hopefuls match up to begin the season.