Corum rescued a drive; Stewart stranded the Chargers

The last 23 yards of Blake Corum's touchdown were the finish, not the whole explanation. Earlier on the Rams' opening possession of the second half, he had cleared the obstacle that threatened to choke it off: first-and-15.

The Rams led 10–9. Corum opened with runs of five and six yards, earning a first down. A false start then pushed them back five. His response was blunt: 13 yards, then eight. First-and-15 became second-and-2, then a fresh set of downs.

That distinction matters. Corum did not merely recover the penalty yardage. His two runs moved the Rams beyond the original requirement and kept the possession moving without a third-down rescue attempt.

After an incompletion, Puka Nacua caught consecutive 12-yard passes. Corum then ran 23 yards for the touchdown that made it 17–9.

Read that possession as repair followed by expansion. The penalty created a longer problem; Corum's next two carries removed it. Nacua's catches advanced the drive, and Corum finished it. That is a more useful account than treating the touchdown run as an isolated burst. Before he supplied the points, Corum supplied a way out of a bad down.

The Chargers' fourth-quarter problem ran in the other direction. They completed passes and still could not repair the damage.

Down 24–9, Justin Herbert scrambled for two yards to leave second-and-8. Josaiah Stewart then sacked him for a nine-yard loss. Now the requirement was third-and-17.

Oronde Gadsden caught the next pass for nine yards. On fourth-and-8, he caught another for seven. Two completions, 16 yards, one yard short. The possession ended there.

No diagram is necessary to see the cost. Stewart's sack did not have to take the ball away itself. It lengthened the distance the Chargers needed, and their next two gains failed to cover it. The catches were productive in isolation. Against the requirement Stewart had helped create, they were insufficient.

That is the hard edge of this sequence. A completion is an outcome; a conversion is a threshold. The Chargers got the former twice without reaching the latter. The sack did not single-handedly explain a 24–9 game, but its local consequence was exact: second-and-8 became third-and-17, and the Chargers never recovered enough ground to keep that possession.

Getting the ball back was not the same as ending the game. The Rams still had 6:39 to handle. They kept possession for all of it.

This was not an uninterrupted procession of easy first downs. Kyren Williams gained one yard, then three, leaving third-and-6. His next carry gained exactly six. The Chargers challenged the first-down ruling; it stood.

Later, with the Rams facing third-and-5, Matthew Stafford found Davis Allen for six yards. Another threshold cleared. Another set of downs without handing the ball back.

Williams eventually faced fourth-and-1 with 25 seconds remaining. He gained two yards, and the game ended with the Rams still in possession.

The useful measure here is not whether every carry looked imposing. It is whether the Rams gained enough at the points where possession was at stake. Williams converted third-and-6 and fourth-and-1. Allen supplied the third-and-5 conversion between them. Those were the hinges of an uninterrupted final possession.

At 24–9, another touchdown was not necessary to make the finish convincing. Keeping the ball did the work. The Chargers' failed fourth down became their last offensive chance because the Rams kept meeting the next requirement, right through the final whistle.