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The Rams and Giants don’t play each other much. Different conferences, different schedules – most years these two just don’t cross paths. This year they did, on Monday, September 21, 2026, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, and the Week 2 matchup ended up mattering a lot more than a random late-September game usually would. New York wanted to keep a good thing going. Los Angeles needed to prove Week 1 was a fluke.

It didn’t take long to find out which team was right. Final score: Rams 28, Giants 6. Not close, not really in doubt after the first quarter. Stafford and Adams were the two names everyone was talking about afterward, and a lot of that had to do with New York losing quarterback Jaxson Dart to injury on the very first drive.

So here’s the full picture – the game itself, the long history between these franchises, where both teams stand now, and what’s coming next.

Los Angeles Rams: Chasing Another Ring, With an Old Friend Back in the Fold

Monday didn’t come easy for the Rams. They opened the season getting beat 27-7 by San Francisco all the way in Melbourne, Australia, and that kind of result – after a trip like that – got people asking real questions about whether something was wrong in Inglewood. Then it got worse. Myles Garrett, the big offseason addition on defense, landed on injured reserve out of that game, and he’s expected to be out at least a month.

But there was a twist waiting in the wings. Aaron Donald was coming back. After two and a half years away from football, he decided he wanted one more shot at a Super Bowl, and by late August it was official – months of quiet buzz and nearly three months of him training on his own had led to this. His new deal runs one year and tops out around $30 million with incentives built in, and it puts him right back on a defensive line the Rams had already been rebuilding with Garrett. Monday was his actual season debut, in front of the SoFi crowd.

Los Angeles Rams Snapshot

Detail
Division	NFC West
Franchise QB	Matthew Stafford
Head coach	Sean McVay
Identity	Aerial firepower through Stafford, Adams and Puka Nacua, paired with a retooled, star-studded defensive line
Notable offseason move	Aaron Donald un-retires, rejoins Rams on a one-year deal
2026 season start	0-1 after a 27-7 loss to San Francisco in Melbourne (Week 1)

Stafford’s turnaround took exactly one week. He’d gone 3-for-10 for 74 yards with a pick in the opener – about as bad as it gets. This time, just in the second half, he was 9 of 13 for 219 yards and two scores. Add up the whole night and it’s two touchdown throws to Adams (31 and 11 yards), a 10-yarder to Kyren Williams, and a 5-yard toss to Terrance Ferguson. Final stat line: 22 of 31, 327 yards, one interception, four touchdowns.

New York Giants: A Fast Start Meets a Scary Setback

Before Monday, things were actually looking up in New York. New head coach John Harbaugh’s team opened the year by beating Dallas 28-20, and they did it converting nine of eleven third-down tries. Jaxson Dart – now in year two, and the full-time starter since partway through his rookie season – looked comfortable running the offense. People were starting to talk about him as the real deal.

Which made what happened next hurt even more. On the last snap of the Giants’ opening possession, two Rams defenders hit Dart as he threw, and his knee buckled awkwardly. Feared injury: a sprained MCL. Jameis Winston took over while the trainers checked on Dart along the sideline. At least there was one small bit of relief – word later in the game suggested Dart had likely dodged anything season-ending.

New York Giants Snapshot

Detail
Division	NFC East
Franchise QB	Jaxson Dart (since 2025)
Head coach	John Harbaugh (1st season with the Giants)
Identity	Young, ascending quarterback play behind a veteran head coach with a Super Bowl pedigree
2026 season start	1-0 after a 28-20 win over Dallas in Week 1

From there, the Giants’ offense basically stalled. Winston never found the rhythm Dart had shown the week before, and Cam Skattebo – supposed to be the workhorse back – got nowhere, just 36 yards on 12 carries all night. Rough way to follow up a promising opener.

Rams vs Giants: How Monday Night Actually Played Out

Final score: Rams 28, Giants 6

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Giants	0	3	3	0
Rams	7	7	7	7

The yardage gap tells you most of what you need to know – 481 for Los Angeles, just 182 for New York – and the Rams pulled it off even while turning the ball over twice themselves. Davante Adams was the real story though. Eight catches on ten targets, 195 yards, two touchdowns. Probably the best game he’s had since signing with LA. His second touchdown catch, in the second half, also happened to push Stafford to 426 career passing touchdowns – sixth all-time in NFL history.

• Passing: Matthew Stafford (LAR) – 22-of-31, 327 yards, 4 TD, 1 INT
• Receiving: Davante Adams (LAR) – 8 catches, 195 yards, 2 TD
• Rushing: Cam Skattebo (NYG) – 12 carries, 36 yards

That two-touchdown game was Adams’ 29th in his career – ties him for fourth-most all time. Harbaugh, for his part, wasn’t in a mood to make excuses afterward. His first loss as Giants head coach, and he told reporters flat out that the team just didn’t play well enough anywhere on the field.

Head-to-Head History: The Full Timeline

This series goes back further than most people realize – all the way to when the Rams were still playing out of Cleveland. First meeting: November 13, 1938. Giants won that one 28-0. Since then, though, it’s been mostly one-way traffic toward Los Angeles, especially the last decade or so.

Date	Winner	Location	Score	Notes
09/21/2026	Rams	Home	28-6	Dart’s injury swung momentum early
12/31/2023	Rams	Away	26-25	Narrow escape at MetLife Stadium
10/17/2021	Rams	Away	38-11	Lopsided road win for LA
10/04/2020	Rams	Home	17-9	Low-scoring, defensive affair
11/05/2017	Rams	Away	51-17	One of the biggest routs in series history
10/23/2016	Giants	Home (Rams)	17-10	Last Giants win in the series before 2026
12/21/2014	Giants	Away	37-27	Rams were still based in St. Louis
10/14/2001	Rams	Home	15-14	Tight divisional-style battle
11/12/2000	Rams	Away	38-24	High-scoring Rams win
09/26/1959	Giants	Away	23-21	Narrow road win for New York
10/22/1961	Giants	Home	24-14	One of the Giants’ rare series wins
11/13/1966	Rams	Home	55-14	Largest margin in series history (41 pts)
11/13/1938	Giants	Away	28-0	First-ever meeting between the franchises

Add it all up – regular season, playoffs, everything – and the Rams are 31-17 against the Giants across 48 total games, a winning rate over 63%. The one place it’s dead even is the postseason: just two meetings, split 1-1, going back to the 1989 divisional round.

A few things worth pointing out:

• Five of the last six meetings have gone LA’s way, dating back to 2016.
• The Giants’ last win in this series before Monday? 2016. A 17-10 game at what was then the Rams’ home field.
• Harbaugh came into Monday 2-2 against McVay in their earlier meetings as head coaches. That’s now 2-3, McVay’s favor.
• Nothing since 2017 has topped that 51-17 blowout for lopsidedness, though this one – a 22-point margin – got close.
• It’s just never really felt like a rivalry in the traditional sense. Different conferences, infrequent matchups, that’s about it.

Three Eras of the Rivalry

Era 1: The Formative Years (1938-1966). New York had the better of it early – that 28-0 shutout in the first-ever meeting says as much. Things flipped by the mid-1960s, and 1966 made the point loudly: a 55-14 Rams win that’s still the biggest margin the series has ever seen.

Era 2: A Split Middle Stretch (2000-2016). Probably the most competitive stretch in the whole history. Wins traded back and forth through the 2000s into the 2010s – New York took one 37-27 over St. Louis in 2014, then beat the Rams again in 2016, 17-10, a result that stood as their last series win until this year.

Era 3: Rams Domination (2017-Present). Since 2017 it hasn’t been much of a contest. Blowouts in 2017 (51-17) and 2021 (38-11), a nail-biter in 2023, now this 28-6 win. Nearly ten years and New York still hasn’t figured this matchup out.

The Previous Meeting: Rams 26, Giants 25 (Dec. 31, 2023)

Compare that to the last time these two played. Los Angeles barely got out of East Rutherford alive, 26-25, in Week 17 of the 2023 season – a game that came down to the wire, nothing like the comfortable win at SoFi this time. Worth remembering, given how one-sided the all-time series looks on paper, that this rivalry can still get tight.

Where Both Teams Stand After Week 2

Both teams are 1-1 right now. What that record actually means depends a lot on how much you trust one Monday night blowout.

Stat	Los Angeles Rams	New York Giants
Week 2 Result	Won 28-6	Lost 6-28
Total Yards (Wk 2)	481	182
Passing Leader	Stafford – 327 yds, 4 TD	Winston (in relief of Dart)
Receiving Leader	Adams – 195 yds, 2 TD	–
Key Injury	Myles Garrett (IR, out 4+ weeks)	Jaxson Dart (knee, MCL concern)
Record	1-1	1-1

For the Rams, this game was really about answering doubts, not padding the record. Stafford and Adams clicked exactly the way the front office hoped they would when they built this offense, and having Donald back gives a young defensive line something to lean on.

For the Giants, everything comes back to Dart’s knee. The offense looked like a completely different team once he was out, and how fast he’s back – and how good he looks when he is – is going to shape the next month of their season.

Coaching Matchup: McVay vs. Harbaugh

First time McVay and Harbaugh have gone head-to-head with Harbaugh leading the Giants, and the two are coming at this from very different places. McVay’s already got a ring, a reputation as one of the league’s best offensive minds, and a roster built to win now. Harbaugh’s got the resume too, just not with this team yet – he’s still early into building something around a young quarterback who’s still learning the job.

Factor	Los Angeles (McVay)	New York (Harbaugh)
Program status	Established Super Bowl contender	Program in year one of a new coaching era
Offensive identity	Stafford-to-Adams vertical passing attack	Built around dual-threat play from Jaxson Dart
Head-to-head history	Now 3-2 all-time vs. Harbaugh	Falls to 2-3 all-time vs. McVay
Notable roster move	Aaron Donald un-retires	Rookie-caliber development around Dart

Betting Angle: What the Odds Said

Vegas had this figured out pretty clearly going in. Rams opened around 7.5-point favorites, moneyline near -375, Giants sitting at about +300. Total landed close to 48.5. Prediction models weren’t shy about it either – one popular one had LA at roughly a 78% chance to win before the game even started.

Turns out the market wasn’t wrong. A 22-point margin blew past the spread with room to spare, backing up exactly what the odds already suggested – this was a mismatch going in, and Dart’s early exit only made it worse.

Jaxson Dart Injury Update: Giants QB Suffers Sprained MCL vs. Rams 

During the New York Giants vs. Los Angeles Rams matchup on Monday Night Football, Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart suffered a knee injury on the opening drive of the game. While being pressured, the second-year Giants QB took a hard hit to his left knee from Rams pass rushers, forcing him out of the game. Initial medical exams indicate that Jaxson Dart is believed to have a sprained MCL.

Following the Jackson Dart injury, backup QB Jameis Winston stepped in to finish out the game as the NY Giants quarterback, though the team ultimately fell in a 28-6 Rams Giants loss. Head coach John Harbaugh noted that the diagnosis was “in the neighborhood” of an MCL sprain, bringing a sense of relief that the superstar NYG quarterback avoided a season-ending injury. While Jaxon Dart reportedly tried to force his way back onto the field in the second half, the medical staff shut it down, leaving fans questioning how long Jaxson Dart will be out for. A standard recovery timeline for this type of knee sprain is typically two to four weeks, though the team is awaiting official MRI results to lock in his exact status.

What’s Next for Both Teams

Next up for Los Angeles: a Week 3 trip to Denver to face the Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High. Quick turnaround, tough road spot, and they’ll still be without Garrett.

New York stays home in Week 3, hosting Tennessee – a game with a little extra storyline attached, since it’s the first time the Giants face former head coach Brian Daboll, now the Titans’ offensive coordinator. Whether Dart or Winston starts probably comes down to how the knee feels over the next few days.

One game in September doesn’t decide a season either way, but right now the gap between these two teams looks real – one club playing like a contender, the other trying to regroup after its best storyline of the year took a hit.

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Source: ESPN