The quarterback impresses the coaches by leading a fourth-quarter drive that almost pulls out a victory in the exhibition game.
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Rams’ Bryce Perkins, running backs show more in loss to Raiders
INGLEWOOD — The Rams expected to have Bryce Perkins and Duck Hodges split time in Saturday night’s preseason game against the Raiders, as the candidates for the team’s third quarterback job did last week against the Chargers.
But after Perkins started the game, he wouldn’t stop.
Allowed to go all the way at SoFi Stadium, he gave the Rams everything but a victory. Perkins’ two-yard touchdown pass to tight end Jacob Harris brought them within a point with 15 seconds to go. But a pass for two points fell incomplete.
The Rams are 0-2 after losing to the Raiders, 17-16, in front of 68,834 (tickets distributed).
“It feels good,” Perkins said of his own performance. “You kind of get a rhythm and things seemed to click on that drive. I just wish we could have come up with that last one.”
Perkins accounted for 56 yards passing and 18 scrambling on the 76-yard final drive, running to convert a third-and-6, a fourth-and-1 and a fourth-and-5 play.
He finished with 208 yards, a touchdown and an interception on 26-for-39 passing, adding 41 rushing yards on nine carries.
With starting quarterback Matthew Stafford and second-stringer John Wolford sitting out preseason games along with most Rams regulars, Perkins is competing to serve on the Rams practice squad for a second year or to impress another team that might pick him up.
“Unbelievable job, just battling throughout,” said Rams coach Sean McVay, who left Perkins in to see if he could bounce back from an interception, and then saw him build momentum. “It’s exciting. I was really pleased just with his poise, his command and composure throughout the course of the game tonight.”
It was exciting, too, for Rams running back Xavier Jones, who might be Perkins’ best friend on the team.
“Just seeing him get in that rhythm and lead us down there was incredible,” Jones said. “I had complete confidence in him. I knew he could make plays.”
Jones liked his own performance, too, as he and rookie Jake Funk showed evidence that one or the other can handle the role of No. 2 running back behind Darrell Henderson.
Jones showed moves and bursts of speed, gaining 41 yards on nine carries, not to mention 30 yards on two eye-catching touches that were wiped out by Rams penalties.
Funk stayed on his feet tenaciously on his way to 56 yards on seven carries, including a 19-yarder and an early 12-yarder on which he broke two Raiders tackles.
The bad news for the Rams was that Raymond Calais hurt an ankle, likely to require surgery for the third man in the backup-running-back competition and the leading candidate to return kickoffs and possibly punts.
Non-medically speaking, the Rams were hurt by 10 penalties, most of them by the offense.
The defense kept them in the game, as it did in the 13-6 loss to the Chargers the Saturday before.
Rookie outside linebacker Chris Garrett, a seventh-round draft pick, had a good first half, also forcing a fumble by quarterback Nathan Peterman that the Raiders recovered.
Rookie nose tackle Bobby Brown III, a fourth-round pick, had a big play too, powering through Raiders center Nick Martin to throw running back Trey Ragas for a 3-yard loss.
Back to the offense.
A lot of the focus was on the Rams’ ground game a week after the second-unit running backs and corresponding offensive line combined to averaged 2.8 yards per rush in the preseason-opening loss to the Chargers.
They quickly showed improvement.
This was important to see because given Henderson’s own injury history, the second-string running back could play a vital role in 2021.
Each of the in-house candidates is 23 and hasn’t seen his first NFL regular-season carry.
Jones and Funk, listed as co-second-stringers at running back on the Rams depth chart, are fueled by memories of injury setbacks.
Injuries cost Jones scholarship offers from bigger college programs, and he settled for a career at SMU, where he led the nation with 23 rushing touchdowns as a senior. That wasn’t enough to get him drafted. The Rams signed him as a free agent in 2020.
“I always say I should have been drafted, but I can’t dwell on that too much,” Jones said last week. “I feel like God don’t make no mistakes. He put me here for a reason. I’ve always had to, I use the phrase, ‘get it out of the mud.’ It’s just a mentality, that chip on my shoulder. I’m ready to perform, ready to show my talent.”
Funk had two knee operations in college at Maryland, and hasn’t played a full season since 2017, one reason he dropped to the seventh round in last April’s draft before the Rams grabbed him.
“It’s a lonely place (rehabbing injuries),” Funk said when he reported for his first Rams training camp. “I competed with myself day in and day out. A lot of people counted me out throughout the process: ‘He’s injury-prone,’ things like that. I just continued to block that out. I’ll let the results speak for themselves.”
The results looked better Saturday than the Saturday before.
The day didn’t begin well for the Rams. In the morning, they announced that both of their punters, Johnny Hekker and Corey Bojorquez, had been placed on the Covid-19 reserve list.
Kicker Matt Gay, who punted in high school in Utah, wound up doing double duty in the game.
His short punt out of the end zone set up a Raiders mini drive to a Ragas touchdown dive, but a field goal by Gay and a touchdown pass by Perkins to tight end Kendall Blanton made it 10-7 at halftime.
The Raiders (2-0) went ahead 17-10 midway through the fourth quarter on a 29-yard pass from Nathan Peterman to wide receiver Marcell Ateman.
Then came the drive by the Rams and Perkins and didn’t win them a game but might have won him a job.
McVay said a plan will come for who’ll play quarterback in the Rams’ last preseason game next Saturday against the Broncos in Denver.
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