Chargers must ‘get back on track,’ linebacker Eric Kendricks says

• October 23, 2023

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The postgame mood in the Chargers’ locker room was what you would expect after a 31-17 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. They were down but defiant, determined to bounce back after falling to 2-4 and looking ahead to the next challenge after failing to meet Sunday’s test.

Realistically, though, with 11 games remaining in the 2023 season, the Chargers must go 8-3 the rest of the way in order to match last season’s 10-7 record. They have opportunities to turn around their season, starting with next Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears at SoFi Stadium.

“There’s nothing we can do about this one, particularly,” Chargers linebacker Eric Kendricks said. “It hurts. We wanted it to be a different result. There were some good things we did. There were some bad things we did. But from the grand scheme of things, we’ve got to get back on track.

“We’ve got to settle down and we’ve got to get back after it. We have 11 games left. It’s a lot of games. A lot of things can still happen. We start playing good, we can still hold some cards in this thing. Honestly, it’s just about finishing. We’ve got the guys. I’m very confident. It’s hard to be confident when it’s like this, but I’ve been in this situation before with good teams.”

Kendricks, a nine-year veteran who spent his first eight seasons in the NFL with the Minnesota Vikings after a stellar career at UCLA, couldn’t remember exactly when it was that one of his teams rallied after a rocky start. But he was adamant that it happened at some point.

“I have no idea, but I’ve been in this situation before,” he said, laughing along with reporters. “I have been in this situation before. You can go back and look. This is my ninth year, so somewhere in the mix. It’s just about stacking them and being consistent, letting go of what you can’t control … and being a savage.”

It’s possible Kendricks was referring to the 2020 season, when the Vikings started out 1-5 before winning six of their final 10 games for a 7-9 overall record. It was the only noteworthy turnaround during his tenure with Minnesota, which began when he was drafted in the second round in 2015.

TURNING POINT

Kendricks was involved in what turned out to be a pivotal play near the end of the half, when he was called for pass interference while defending a pass from Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes that was intended for tight end Travis Kelce in the end zone. The penalty gave Kansas City the ball at the Chargers’ 1-yard line.

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On first and goal, Mahomes then completed a 1-yard touchdown pass to Kelce for a 24-17 lead with 15 seconds left in the half, an advantage that would hold up as the Chiefs held the Chargers scoreless in the second half. It was Mahomes’ third touchdown pass of the first half.

“The penalty before half(time) was crucial,” Kendricks said. “It led to a touchdown. … It was sold pretty well. I didn’t turn my head. I was in a really good position. I wasn’t trying to be physical. I knew it was a scramble drill, so I knew if I turned my head the tight end could go in another direction.

“He sold it pretty well.”

​ Orange County Register 

Rams kicker Brett Maher falters in loss to Steelers

• October 23, 2023

INGLEWOOD — As he stood in a quiet locker room following the Rams’ 24-17 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, kicker Brett Maher offered a soft-spoken but straightforward evaluation of his performance on the day.

“Just a little disappointed for the team,” Maher said. “I feel like I could have made a very positive impact on that game and didn’t do my part today.”

In a seven-point loss, Maher left seven points on the field. He missed two of three field goals, a 53-yarder that went off the left post and a 51-yarder that went wide left. And he missed an extra point attempt at the end of the second quarter.

The Rams managed to make up for the extra point, converting a two-point conversion in the third quarter. But they weren’t able to ease the pain of Maher’s other misses on a day in which they lost by a touchdown.

“Just feel like I couldn’t find it today,” Maher said. “I didn’t deviate from my routine today. Just gotta be better when my number’s called.”

Asked if the first miss snowballed into the others, Maher dismissed the idea.

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“When I first started doing this, I think that was a challenge,” Maher said. “Since I’ve been around longer, I feel like I’ve been able to treat one kick like one kick at a time.”

Maher is now 17-for-23 on field goals this season, with all of his misses coming from 40 yards or longer. Sunday marked his first missed extra point of the year.

Asked after the game about what conversation he’ll have with Maher, McVay deferred until he examined the situation more closely.

“We’ll look at it and we’ll see. He’s gotta be better,” McVay said. “That’s seven points that we missed out on that were key and critical for the momentum of the game and the type of game that it was. Those were tough ones today.”

Briefly

With right guard Joe Noteboom healthy and active on Sunday, the Rams opted to keep Kevin Dotson in the starting lineup. Dotson had started the previous three games at the position as Noteboom first slid out the left tackle, then missed two games with an injury.

​ Orange County Register 

ALCS: Eovaldi leads Rangers past Astros to force Game 7

• October 23, 2023

By KRISTIE RIEKEN (AP Sports Writer)

HOUSTON — Nathan Eovaldi remained perfect this postseason, and Mitch Garver and Jonah Heim homered early before a ninth-inning grand slam by Adolis García helped the Texas Rangers avoid elimination with a 9-2 win over the Houston Astros in Game 6 of the AL Championship Series on Sunday night.

Eovaldi, who also got the win in Game 2, yielded five hits and two runs in 6 1/3 innings to improve to 4-0 with a 2.42 ERA in the playoffs this year.

The decisive Game 7 is Monday night in Houston, where the Rangers, one of six major league teams without a World Series title, need a win to return to the Fall Classic for the first time since back-to-back trips in 2010-11.

The defending World Series champion Astros were again felled by a subpar start from Framber Valdez and lackluster play at home. Valdez was charged with five hits and three runs with six strikeouts in five innings to fall to 0-3 with a 9.00 ERA this postseason.

The Rangers led by two before breaking the game open with a five-run ninth, punctuated by the slam from García, who struck out his previous four times up. The slugger was booed throughout the game after being at the center of a bench-clearing scuffle in Game 5 after being hit by a pitch from Bryan Abreu.

When García knocked a pitch from Ryne Stanek into the Crawford Boxes in left field with one out in the ninth, many of those fans began streaming for the exits after yet another poor home showing by Houston.

The Astros, who are 5-0 on the road this postseason, won three in a row in Arlington wearing their orange jerseys to move within a win of reaching their third consecutive World Series. But it didn’t help them carry their road magic home as they fell to 1-4 in Houston this postseason after posting a 39-42 mark at Minute Maid Park in the regular season.

This series joins the 2019 World Series, which Houston lost to Washington, as the only best-of-seven series in postseason history in which the road team won the first six games.

Houston led by one after a first-inning RBI single by Yordan Alvarez. But Garver tied it on his solo shot to start the second.

Heim connected off Valdez for the second time this series with a two-run shot with two outs in the fourth that put Texas on top 3-1.

Houston got within 3-2 on a sacrifice fly by Mauricio Dubón in the sixth. But the Rangers got some insurance from an RBI double by Garver with one out in the eighth off Abreu.

It’s the first time the Rangers have won an elimination game in the postseason since Game 5 of the 2010 ALDS at Tampa Bay when Cliff Lee pitched a complete game in a 5-1 Texas victory. They’d lost five straight such games and Sunday’s win was just their second in eight tries.

The Astros had a shot to cut the lead late before Garcia’s big swing, but José Leclerc came through after giving up the decisive three-run homer to Jose Altuve in the ninth inning of Game 5.

Josh Sborz walked Alex Bregman to start the Houston eighth and struck out Alvarez before José Abreu singled with one out.

Leclerc took over and walked Kyle Tucker to load the bases before Dubón lined out softly to shortstop. Pinch-hitter Jon Singleton, who entered with one career postseason at-bat, batted for Jeremy Peña and struck out against Leclerc to end the threat.

Alvarez got Houston’s first hit since the first inning with a single with no outs in the sixth. Abreu singled on a grounder to right field before Tucker grounded into a force out that left him out at second and sent Alvarez to third.

The sacrifice fly by Dubón sent Alvarez home to cut the lead to 1. But Peñagrounded out to end the inning.

The Astros looked good early against Eovaldi. Altuve hit a leadoff single and stole second base before Brantley walked. There was one out in the inning when Alvarez lined a single to center field to score Altuve and make it 1-0. Eovaldi limited the damage when Abreu lined out before Tucker struck out.

Garver sent the first pitch of the second inning into the seats in right field to tie it at 1-all. The ball was caught barehanded by a man in the second row.

Nathaniel Lowe singled after that, but Josh Jung grounded into a double play to end the inning.

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Valdez didn’t allow another baserunner until Garver singled with two outs in the fourth. Heim followed with his shot to right field to make it 3-1. The ball sailed just past the glove of a leaping Tucker and into the first row. Heim, who had a career-high 18 home runs in the regular season, also homered off Valdez in Game 2 of this series.

Bryan Abreu pitched the eighth inning for Houston after appealing the two-game suspension he was given by Major League Baseball for intentionally throwing at Garcia.

Bryan Abreu’s hearing is Monday before John McHale Jr., special assistant to Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Evan Carter singled off Bryan Abreu to start the eighth before he struck out Adolis Garcia. Bryan Abreu allowed a run-scoring double by Garver before retiring the next two batters to end the inning.

​ Orange County Register 

Ducks fall to Bruins after late rally

• October 23, 2023

ANAHEIM –– If fans were looking for an explosive night from No. 2 overall pick Leo Carlsson as part of a high-scoring affair Sunday at Honda Center, they might have been disappointed, as Carlsson sat out the Ducks’ 3-1 loss to the Boston Bruins.

But if they were looking for clear signs of progress from a young club burgeoning with promise, the Ducks gave them plenty to smile about, even as Carlsson got comfortable in the press box as part of a planned absence.

It was the sort of workload management the Ducks had plotted for him in early-season situations like they faced Sunday, when they were playing the second half of a back-to-back set after a 2-1 loss in Arizona Saturday. They also have envisioned more stifling defensive efforts, like they turned in this weekend and throughout the early going of the 2023-24 campaign.

The Ducks were an empty-net goal allowed away from having ceded two goals or fewer in three straight games, something they did only once in all of the 2022-23. Not coincidentally, those three matches were the only instances where the Ducks won three straight games in regulation and one of just two three-game win streaks last season overall (the other saw them allow exactly six goals across three victories, one in overtime). While their newfound structure and defensive acumen have only translated to one victory in five matches, the difference has been palpable in every area but the win column.

“Sitting here 10 minutes after the game it’s frustrating, but the way we’ve played for the first five games I don’t think anyone has any disappointment,” veteran forward Ryan Strome said.

“Five-on-five we’re controlling a lot of the play. We’re playing good hard defense,” added Strome. “Everyone’s playing hard, you see guys forechecking, everyone’s hitting, no one’s being lazy or taking shifts off. The results are going to come.”

Mason McTavish scored his second goal of the season. John Gibson beat back 23 Boston bids.

Boston’s Matthew Poitras scored his first NHL goal and thought so much of the experience that he tallied again in the same period before Brad Marchand added an empty-net marker, his third goal in two nights. Linus Ullmark, last year’s Vezina Trophy winner, had 30 saves, two fewer than his backup Jeremy Swayman did in a win over the Kings Saturday.

Marchand’s empty netter with 2:34 to play extinguished any hopeful embers for the Ducks, who had buzzed early in the third and surged in spurts late.

Boston had earlier responded with its first goal of the night, and the first of a promising rookie’s career, 1:24  after the Ducks got the scoring going. It was Poitras depositing the puck into Gibson’s net with a redirection from the low slot. It was a goal few could have foreseen when he entered training camp on the Bruins’ roster bubble. Fewer still could have predicted his game-winning goal with 9:40 to play off a followup effort down low.

The Ducks had broken through 5:05 into the closing stanza with a goal off the rush. McTavish engineered a golden opportunity for Strome, whose rebound was banked softly off the post and in by McTavish for his second goal of the season. Prior to that, the Ducks had sustained pressure and tested Ullmark, creating some buildup to the goal.

“You can always feel the momentum, especially with the fans, with the loud noise in the back of your head,” McTavish said. “It gives you more energy, we were kind of flying and we kind of felt the ice shift.”

Through two periods, the game was not only scoreless but also even in many statistical areas. Shots on goal, faceoffs and turnovers were essentially split, but the Ducks had owned the puck more, delivered four more hits and blocked six more shots than the Bruins. Their heavy possession advantage –– Natural Stat Trick metrics put them around 65% in every major category for the game –– barely produced a shot-on-goal advantage and put them at a disadvantage in shot attempts.

Coach Greg Cronin lamented the lack of a shot mentality and expressed bewilderment at his team’s tendency to possess the puck in dangerous areas only to redistribute it to the peripheries of the offensive zone.

“We had plenty of opportunities. I keep saying, like a broken record, we won’t shoot the puck. We had the puck the whole second period,” Cronin said.

“We want to tee it up and pass the puck laterally at home plate, it’s getting old,” he added.

Last year, the Ducks owned the league’s lowest point total while the Bruins surpassed the NHL’s all-time marks for wins and points in a single campaign. They’re also off to a famous start despite two key players retiring, having won their first five matches.

Upsetting that order would have required a bit of a defiant attitude, and the Ducks got some of that from their physical play, including when defenseman Radko Gudas stood up Boston tough guy Trent Frederic and sent the hulking forward back to the dressing room for medical attention in the second period (he later returned).

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While Gudas, an established vet whose heavy style of play is well-defined, rookie Pavel Mintyukov turned in another magnificent effort Sunday, earning second-star honors.

Yet for all the encouraging signals in the Ducks’ game Sunday and their early-season schedule so far, they’ve only got one win and two points to show for their hustling and grinding.

“We played well. But you can’t keep saying that. You’re saying that every game,” Cronin said. “We could have beat Dallas, we could have beat this team. Score goals. You can’t win games scoring one goal a game.”

​ Orange County Register 

Exploits of P-22 live on at fest in Griffith Park, former home of ‘Hollywood Cat’

• October 23, 2023

Los Angeles County’s famed “Hollywood Cat,” euthanized last December, still lives in the hearts of local wildlife boosters. Supporters gathered in Griffith Park on Sunday for the annual P-22 Day Festival, honoring the beloved mountain lion who navigated two freeways to make his home in this often bustling gathering place for Angelenos.

The free Urban Wildlife Week event, organized by the National Wildlife Federation’s #SaveLACougars campaign, included live music, food trucks, live painting by muralists and native-plant giveaways.

P-22 was euthanized Dec. 17 after being examined by wildlife officials who captured him following signs of distress, including a series of attacks on pet dogs in the area. A combination of incurable kidney disease, organ damage most likely from being struck by a vehicle and a debilitating skin infection led veterinarians to make the decision, according to a report issued in June.

An enduring celebrity among Southern California wildlife fans — a symbol of wild animals’ struggles with the encroachment of man, P-22’s story was bittersweet. Some have compared his life to a social media influencer, with news stories and his own museum exhibit and musical composition demonstrating how co-existing with wildlife is not only possible in L.A., but celebrated.

He was born in the Santa Monica Mountains, the son of P-1, an adult male. National Park Service scientists first captured him and placed a radio collar around his neck in March 2012 when he was about 2 years old. He somehow managed to cross the 101 and 405 freeways, two of the busiest freeways in the world, and so became isolated in Griffith Park, which gets about 10 million visitors a year.

While he was captured on numerous video cameras by nearby residents and scientists, he rarely interacted with humans, avoiding the popular park’s human participants. Because he was isolated from female lions in his small habitat surrounded by freeways and urban communities, he never produced offspring, according to the NPS.

Defying expectations, he persisted for more than 10 years in Griffith Park, the smallest home range that has ever been recorded for an adult male mountain lion.

P-22 became the face of the NPS lion-tracking study, and was held up as an example of a cat surviving the treacherous conditions facing the big cats living in geographically confined spaces. With the population mostly isolated, a recent study found that the lions could potentially become extinct within 50 years without the introduction of new animals to limit inbreeding.

Tales of P-22 live on. The cat was remembered during a unique memorial on Feb. 4 in a sold-out Greek Theatre with videos, songs and testimonials.

The connections to the famous urban puma were recreated by scientists, school children, philanthropists and politicians at the sold-out “Celebration of Life for P-22″ memorial.

“Not only was he an important ambassador for urban wildlife, but his scientific contributions were also many. He helped us understand how mountain lions coexist with humans in this complex urban landscape,” said Jeff Sikich, lead field biologist of the NPS mountain lion study.

How can a wild lion, one that hunts deer for food and in his later, more desperate months, fed on a resident’s pet chihuahua, coexist with thousands of L.A. residents?

A decade ago, Michael McMahan moved into a condo in the Hollywood Hills after a divorce. He set up remote cameras and captured 87 video images of P-22. The bromance between man and beast began.

“He’d swing by my place every two or three weeks,” he told the crowd, showing off a P-22 tattoo on his left shoulder. “If he could thrive here, then so can I. We were just two aging bachelors roaming the Hollywood Hills.”

Programs to help such creatures survive in Southern California have been buoyed by P-22’s exploits. Such efforts include the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over the Ventura (101) Freeway is under construction in the Agoura Hills area, and is seen as a “major and critical step” in enabling the big cats and other wildlife to expand their territories — and do so safely, without having to cross major roads.

On display at Sunday’s festival was a model of the crossing — alongside tombstones remembering the 30 mountain lions that have died in the region.

The landscaped crossing will span 10 lanes of the 101 Freeway in Liberty Canyon when completed in 2025, and aims to provide a connection between the small population of mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains and the larger and genetically diverse populations to the north.

City News Service contributed to this report 

​ Orange County Register 

Laguna Woods resident hid in plain sight to survive Holocaust

• October 23, 2023

For many children, the game of hide-and-seek is played for fun, but for Betty Nasiell, hiding during part of her childhood was the key to her survival.

When she was 6 years old and living in her native Netherlands, Nasiell saw German soldiers marching past her house singing a song about continuing on to England.

It was May 1940, and the Germans had overrun her country in their bid to dominate Europe and the world during World War II.

“My father told me not to worry, and I was too young to realize the consequences,” Nasiell, 89, said in a recent interview at her home in Laguna Woods, where she has lived for 35 years,

When her mother asked if the family could go to America, her father said it was too late to escape, she recalled.

Soon Nasiell was unable to attend school or play with neighborhood children due to German decrees regarding the treatment of members of the Jewish faith.

“We had to wear a yellow star on our coats, which was sewn on to designate we were Jews,” she said in an account of her life written up by friend and neighbor AJ Lane.

“I had no idea what it was for,” Nasiell said. “I was mad about not playing with my other girlfriends.”

Although they had enough food on the table, her parents, Leo and Sascha van der Horst, had to close the department store they owned in the town of Steenwijk and relinquish their car. Leo was taken away briefly by the Germans but fortunately returned to his family in time for his wife’s birthday.

By 1942, Nasiell’s parents knew it was time to disappear with help from the local underground movement.

“My sister and I were deposited with some former store employees nearby for one night,” Nasiell said in Lane’s account. Strangers from the underground picked her up and took her by herself to the home of a couple named Liefland in Utrecht to go into hiding.

“I wasn’t thinking anything at the time but knew I couldn’t go outside except at night so I wouldn’t be seen,” Nasiell said.

During a necessary visit to a doctor, she was briefly reunited with her sister, Kathy, who was three years older, in the waiting room. She discovered that her sister had been sent to several homes in hiding but was so homesick and depressed, she was reunited with their parents.

When neighbors collaborating with the Germans entered the house where Nasiell was staying and asked her point-blank if she was Jewish, she answered that she was.

“No one had told me to say that I wasn’t,” she said.

Taken in for interrogation, she told the authorities honestly that she didn’t know where her parents were despite threats of having her ears cut off.

She was taken away to Amsterdam and held with other Jews in a theater before they were to be shipped off to Poland. Members of the underground managed to find out that she had relatives in the city who owned a kosher restaurant.

Her aunt and uncle, named Hiechentlich, paid a ransom to have Nasiell freed, and she stayed with them for several months.

Again the Germans were threatening to send Jews on their “last trip.” A member of the underground picked up Nasiell and took her to a drugstore.

“I was sitting in the corner with the Star of David under my coat,” she related to Lane. When a Nazi soldier came in and asked what she was doing there, the pharmacist said she was waiting for a prescription.

An underground worker then spirited her across the Netherlands by train to the eastern town of Nijverdal, where she joined the household of a childless couple named Pieter and Klasien Bakker. Along the way, they passed through Nasiell’s native city, but no one recognized her.

At her new hiding place, Nasiell experienced more freedom of movement. She could go anywhere she wanted.

“The neighborhood knew I was Jewish, but I did not have to display the star,” she told Lane. As the school principal was also hiding a Jewish boy, they both could go to school.

When German troops commandeered the house she was living in, she and the family went to the country, where they lived on a farm in Hellendoren. During the time she was with the Bakkers, Nasiell said she grew so much that she had to cut the toes off her shoes because new ones were not available.

As the Germans retreated toward the end of the war, they became more desperate, even launching a hand grenade through the house where Nasiell was living, nearly striking her.

In May 1945, the Netherlands was liberated. Canadians and Americans on tanks came driving into town, throwing loaves of Wonder Bread at the exhilarated people, who were finally free. When she tasted the bread, Nasiell thought it was cake, she recalled.

A few weeks after returning to the Bakkers’ house, she was reunited with her mother and sister. They had all lived in hiding, including her sister, who had been transferred 16 times.

When she asked where her father was, she learned that he had died of a heart attack two weeks before the war ended. “I never saw my father again,” Nasiell said.

“If I hadn’t been sent to eastern Holland, I would have starved,” she told Lane. “The western part of Holland had no food. And the fact that I was oblivious to what was happening around me saved my life.”

The reunited family went back to their hometown, where her mother reopened their store.

“Mother had a box of buttons that she displayed in the store’s window,” Nasiell recalled. “That’s why people came back to the store, because they needed buttons!” The store also sold clothing and linens.

Nasiell returned to school, entering fifth grade as if she had never missed any learning time.

An uncle with a store in northern Holland helped the family get back on its feet, and three years later, her mother was remarried to a man named Hans Hartog.

In 1959, Nasiell came to the United States with her first husband, a Dutchman who served in the U.S. Army, and lived in California. They had two sons, Leon and Irvin. Later divorced, she married Gus Nasiell, a Swede, with whom she moved to the Village. He died last year.

Neighbor Lane met Nasiell at the pool three years ago, became fascinated by her story and wrote a short biography for the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, which chronicles the history of the Holocaust.

“You are living history,” Lane tells Nasiell and feels adamant that her friend’s story be told before it is too late, before living witnesses to the horrors of the Holocaust are gone.

Nasiell said she feels great gratitude to the people who risked their lives to hide her.

“I regret that I never went back to thank the families I lived with,” she said. “I never saw them again nor remained in contact.”

She and Lane hope that by publicizing her story, descendants of the families who saved her may reach out and make contact after all these years.

​ Orange County Register 

Chargers can’t contain Patrick Mahomes in loss to Chiefs

• October 23, 2023

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A first-half offensive showcase between Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert and Kansas City Chiefs counterpart Patrick Mahomes turned into a second-half defensive grind Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium. Mahomes and the Chiefs took a 31-17 victory, their sixth consecutive win.

Herbert and the Chargers (2-4) couldn’t rally in the second half from a one touchdown deficit after each team’s offense put on a second-quarter show. Mahomes completed 32 of 42 passes for 424 yards with four touchdowns and one interception by game’s end for AFC-leading Kansas City (6-1).

Herbert completed 17 of 30 passes for 259 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions.

The Chargers were shut out in the second half.

The Chiefs took a 24-17 lead by halftime, with Mahomes working his magic in the form of 20-for-23 passing for 321 yards and three touchdowns with one interception. His 1-yard touchdown pass to tight end Travis Kelce broke a 17-17 tie with 15 seconds remaining in the first half.

Herbert, playing for the second consecutive game with the fractured middle finger on his left hand protected by padding and a white glove, did what he could to match all that the Chiefs had to offer in the opening half, which was plenty. Herbert completed 10 of 14 passes for 159 yards and one touchdown.

Kansas City got the ball back with a little more than two minutes left in the half, and Mahomes drove the Chiefs 96 yards in six plays over 2:33 for the go-ahead score. Kelce’s touchdown reception was his ninth catch of the half on nine targets from Mahomes for a total of 143 yards.

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Chargers running back Joshua Kelley’s 49-yard touchdown run that tied the score 10-10 was the first TD the Chiefs had given up this season of 20 yards or more. Kelley gained 61 of the Chargers’ 96 yards rushing in the first half. Kelley had four carries. Austin Ekeler had 22 yards on seven carries.

After a 35-point second quarter, the teams were scoreless in the third, with Kansas City taking its 24-17 lead into the fourth. The Chargers shifted into more man-to-man coverage against Kelce after halftime, an adjustment that worked to great effect and kept them in striking distance.

Kelce had 12 catches for 179 yards by game’s end.

​ Orange County Register 

Rams defense collapses in fourth quarter of loss to Steelers

• October 23, 2023

INGLEWOOD — Through three quarters, the Rams defense looked as though it had put the Steelers into a box. Six first downs, 110 total yards, three three-and-outs, some standout performances by Michael Hoecht and Cobie Durant.

But when the clock struck the fourth quarter, it was as though the Rams had been transformed into Halloween pumpkins.

The Rams allowed back-to-back touchdown drives to open the fourth quarter, giving up 139 yards and nine first downs on those drives alone as George Pickens and Diontae Johnson gashed them deep.

Their touchdown lead erased, the Rams offense gained just 18 yards and punted it away. But the defense, gassed as it was, could not keep the Steelers from moving down the field, or stop quarterback Kenny Pickett’s decisive fourth-down sneak to close out a 24-17 Rams loss.

The Rams fell to 3-4 for the season and the Steelers improved to 4-2.

The offense wasn’t at its best, but it was doing enough to get the Rams into scoring positions. Running backs Darrell Henderson and Royce Freeman, both promoted off the practice squad, combined for over 100 yards and did not allow the Steelers to key in on the pass.

And on a day in which Cooper Kupp dropped his first two targets and couldn’t find a rhythm, rookie Puka Nacua and Tutu Atwell came through.

Atwell came out of nowhere to grab a pass intended for Kupp, falling over in the end zone, to score a touchdown. And Nacua put together his fourth 100-yard performance in seven games. His toe-tapping, 36-yard gain against double coverage put the Rams in position for Henderson to punch in the score and put the Rams ahead.

But kicker Brett Maher missed a pair of field goals and an extra point that could have made a difference in the game.

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​ Orange County Register