INGLEWOOD, Calif. — — Everything seemed to indicate the San Francisco 49ers were in for a long night when they traveled south on a short week without Brock Purdy, Nick Bosa, George Kittle and their top three wide receivers to face the surging Los Angeles Rams.
The Niners had a long Thursday night, all right — but after nearly 67 minutes featuring innumerable twists and turns, they headed home with an improbable victory that reasserted their dominance in their biggest NFC West rivalry.
“We talked about how tough we had to be for four quarters,” quarterback Mac Jones said. “It came down to who was going to be the toughest team, and I think it was us.”
Eddy Piñeiro hit a 41-yard field goal in overtime before San Francisco stopped Kyren Williams on fourth down with 3:36 to play, and the short-handed 49ers hung on for a thrilling 26-23 victory.
Jones passed for 342 yards and two touchdowns while playing through a leg injury for the 49ers (4-1), who scored on their first two drives and led 20-7 late in the third quarter.
Los Angeles finally mounted a rally, but with help from several glaring Rams mistakes, the Niners hung on to win their first OT game since losing Super Bowl 58 in February 2024.
The frantic fourth quarter featured Piñeiro’s tiebreaking 59-yard field goal with 2:52 left, Williams’ subsequent goal-line fumble and Joshua Karty‘s tying 48-yard field goal for the Rams (3-2) with 2 seconds to play.
“They were unbelievable,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said of his players. “We talked about how long this game was going to be, how focused we had to be, how competitive we had to be for the entire time. Started out great, but it’s a good team. They tightened it up. Got real tight, then lost a number of dudes. We had to overcome losing two D-linemen in that game, and the D-line is still stepping it up big. That was a huge character win.”
The Rams gave the ball to San Francisco to begin overtime, and Jones drove to set up Piñeiro’s fourth field goal with 5:51 left.
Los Angeles marched down the field, and facing fourth-and-1 at the San Francisco 11, coach Sean McVay elected to go for it — only to call a running play that he regretted almost immediately.
“I’m pretty sick right now,” McVay said. “I’m sick of the spot that I put our group in to end the game, but these are the tough beats that you’ve got to be able to learn from and move forward.”
Marques Sigle and Deommodore Lenoir got credit for smothering Williams well short of the first down.
“It didn’t look like they had anywhere to go,” Shanahan said. “Looked like a brick wall, which is similar to what we ran into all game, but it was awesome for us to get it done.”
Kendrick Bourne had career highs of 10 catches for 142 yards for San Francisco, while Jones played impressively through an apparent leg injury. Christian McCaffrey had 139 total yards for the 49ers, who snapped their three-game losing streak in this rivalry despite the injury absences of Purdy — who is “week to week” with his toe injury, Shanahan revealed — and the majority of their most famous players.
San Francisco then lost starting defensive linemen Kalia Davis and Yetur Gross-Matos to injuries during the game, but rookie backup lineman Alfred Collins made the biggest play of the night when he forced and recovered Williams’ fumble at the goal line with 1:05 left in regulation.
“It was a must-have-it play, because if I didn’t do that, they would have scored,” Collins said. “When I saw the ball, I cocked it back and hit it.”
Collins punched the ball away and fell on it when Williams was inches from scoring a go-ahead TD. Williams lost the ball five days after Indianapolis’ Adonai Mitchell fumbled an instant before crossing the same goal line in the Rams’ 27-20 victory.
“I feel like I let the team down on the 1-yard line,” said Williams, who caught two TD passes.
Matthew Stafford passed for 389 yards and three touchdowns for the Rams, who lost despite racking up 319 yards after halftime. Los Angeles missed a long field goal, had an extra point blocked and fumbled twice deep in 49ers territory.
Los Angeles still used its three timeouts to force a punt after Wiliams’ fumble and drove to force OT.
Puka Nacua had 10 receptions for 85 yards and a touchdown, becoming the first receiver in NFL history with more than 50 catches in his team’s first five games.
“There were moments in the game where we fought back and gave ourselves opportunities to win, and we just didn’t execute on them,” Nacua said.
Purdy sat out for the third time in four games with his toe injury. San Francisco also played without injured receivers Jauan Jennings, Ricky Pearsall and Brandon Aiyuk — but Jones, Bourne and a fired-up defense did just enough to reassert the Niners’ dominance in this matchup.
49ers: Gross-Matos injured his hamstring in the second half and didn’t return. … Davis broke his hand in the first half, Shanahan said. … CB Upton Stout was sidelined late by an ankle injury.
Rams: RT Rob Havenstein and TE Tyler Higbee were inactive.
49ers: Visit the Buccaneers on Sunday, Oct. 12.
Rams: Visit the Ravens on Sunday, Oct. 12.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL
