Good morning.The Rams opened their season on the other side of the world and got their doors blown off. The Dodgers land in Miami with a seven-game winning streak and no Shohei Ohtani. The Angels have quietly won three in a row. Ryan Garcia and Conor Benn fight at T-Mobile Arena tomorrow night. Let’s get into it.
🚨 HEADLINES
🏈 Deeper than jet lag. The Rams were beaten in every phase, and the travel is not the reason — Arash Markazi at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
🏈 “A humbling day.” McVay’s post-game accounting of a 27-7 loss — Muhammed Asif in Melbourne.
🥊 Saturday at T-Mobile. Garcia’s road back continues against Benn on Mexican Independence Day weekend — Will Despart at T-Mobile Arena.
🏒 Six more years. The Golden Knights extended Bowman — Steve Carp at City National Arena.
🏈 The first storm. Derek Hegna on Brock Bowers and what the Kubiak era has to weather — Derek Hegna at the Intermountain Health Performance Center.
⚾ The end of a first. Ontario’s inaugural season is over — Ernesto Madrigal-Rodriguez at ONT Field.
See what else is trending at The Sporting Tribune.
📋 SCOREBOARD
🏈 NFL (Thursday): 49ers 27, Rams 7 (at the Melbourne Cricket Ground)
⚾ MLB: The Dodgers and Angels were both off Thursday. Catching up from Wednesday — Angels 6, Red Sox 4.
⚽ MLS (Wednesday, catching up): San Jose 3, San Diego FC 2 · Vancouver 3, Galaxy 0
🏈 THE TRIP WASN’T THE PROBLEM
Arash Markazi’s column is the one to read this morning, and its argument is harder than the easy one available.
The Rams arrived with the reigning MVP, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year and the heaviest Super Bowl odds in more than a decade. They landed a day before kickoff, played, and left. San Francisco had been in Melbourne a week. When you lose 27-7, that contrast becomes the story.
McVay took it head on. “I don’t believe that’s why we didn’t play well enough. I really don’t,” he said. “It’s easy in hindsight to say it was a miss. Those are responsibilities that I’ll take.”
Markazi’s verdict splits the difference and lands harder for it: the travel plan deserves scrutiny, and it is not the excuse. “Based on what these teams showed, I don’t believe arriving a week earlier would have changed the winner. The Rams could have spent a month in Melbourne and still needed to play substantially better to beat San Francisco.”
Kobie Turner reached for the London trip as precedent — “We took the same steps last year when we went to go play the Jaguars in London. We beat them.” Markazi’s rebuttal is the detail that makes the column: the Rams had already played in Baltimore and stayed on the East Coast for a week before a seven-hour hop to London. Leaving Los Angeles for Melbourne is not the same journey.
What the players actually described was worse than jet lag. Stafford: “We didn’t do the things that we are accustomed to doing. That’s just communicating, operating, being on the same page. Too many times we were on different pages.” And then: “That starts with me. I’m the guy that’s communicating all that stuff.”
He went 15-for-25 for 155 yards, no touchdowns, one interception. The sequence that decided it came from inside the 1 — Stafford stopped on a sneak, and San Francisco answering with a 99-yard touchdown drive. “Yeah, yeah,” Stafford said when asked if the sneak was called. “I just got to find a way to get it.”
Turner: “Anytime we let a team drive from the one and score a touchdown, we’re not going to win a lot of games that way.”
And then there is Myles Garrett, who finished his first game as a Ram with no tackles and said something the Rams will be living with for a while. Asked whether his knee was painful: “Yeah.” Asked whether he had felt fully healthy going in, he made clear he had not.
“This was the worst version of myself that I’ve put out there,” Garrett said. “I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to find a way to recover and to get back to the player I know I can be.”
Then the part that should worry Los Angeles most: “When I was out there, I was a little bit more focused on myself, trying to stay healthy, not what they were doing. That showed.”
McVay apologized to Australian fans and did not argue with any of it. “Sometimes sports can humble you and today was one of those days. I make no excuses. Whether you want to say it’s travel, whatever. We just weren’t good enough in that window.”
One game. But as Markazi closes it: they can fix the next itinerary with an earlier departure. Closing the distance between the team they were supposed to be and the one that showed up in Melbourne takes considerably more than that.
GO DEEPER
› Arash Markazi: Rams’ problems go deeper than jet lag after Melbourne humiliation (The Sporting Tribune)
› Muhammed Asif: Sean McVay speaks out after Rams’ crushing 27-7 loss to 49ers (The Sporting Tribune)
One more from Melbourne: San Francisco rookie receiver De’Zhaun Stribling went down with a non-contact ankle injury, and George Kittle played eight months after Achilles surgery without looking like himself. The 49ers fly home 1-0 in the division and paid something for it.
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🍔 THE DEALS BOARD
Active today across Southern California — brought to you by Ike’s Sandwiches, home of the world famous Arash Markazi sandwich, which has fried chicken, purple slaw, wasabi mayo, honey mustard, and cheddar on a Dutch Crunch roll. Just ask for the 500 at any Ike’s location. The thinnest board of the season, and there is a simple reason: the Dodgers and Angels were both off Thursday, so almost every trigger needs a game that never happened.
⭐ Carl’s Jr. — free Famous Star with cheese with a large drink after the Rams recorded an interception. Code RAMS7146 in the app.
🥤 Mountain Dew — free 20-oz Baja Blast. Cam Smith’s 421-footer for Houston on Thursday keeps this one alive. Wallet pass at OTC Network stores. This is the rare deal that doesn’t need a Los Angeles team to play.
🎰 VEGAS, ON FIGHT WEEKEND
We have the fight covered from both sides. Will Despart writes from T-Mobile Arena on Ryan Garcia’s road to redemption continuing against Conor Benn on Mexican Independence Day weekend — the single biggest boxing weekend on the Las Vegas calendar. Michael Huezo breaks down what each man has to get right to win it. And earlier this week Despart had Benn saying he is ready for his championship moment.
Elsewhere in the desert: Steve Carp reports the Golden Knights have bet on Bowman with a six-year extension, and Derek Hegna writes that Brock Bowers has become the first real storm the Kubiak-era Raiders have to weather — two days before they open against Miami at Allegiant Stadium.
GO DEEPER
› Will Despart: Ryan Garcia’s road to redemption continues against Conor Benn on Mexican Independence Day weekend (The Sporting Tribune)
› Michael Huezo: What Garcia and Benn each need to get right at T-Mobile Arena (The Sporting Tribune)
› Steve Carp: Knights bet on Bowman with six-year extension (The Sporting Tribune)
› Derek Hegna: Brock Bowers has become the first storm to weather for the Kubiak-era Raiders (The Sporting Tribune)
📌 AROUND THE MARKETS
Ontario’s first season is over. Ernesto Madrigal-Rodriguez was at ONT Field for the end of the Tower Buzzers’ inaugural year, which finished in the Cal League playoffs. Not many outlets in Southern California staffed a first-year Single-A club start to finish. We did.
Mark your calendar. Carlos Yakimowich has the Lakers’ full 2026-27 promotional schedule — bobblehead nights, jersey giveaways and the rest. Useful if you buy tickets around that sort of thing, and most people do.
GO DEEPER
› Ernesto Madrigal-Rodriguez: Tower Buzzers’ historic first season comes to an end (The Sporting Tribune)
› Carlos Yakimowich: Lakers announce promotional schedule for 2026-27 season (The Sporting Tribune)
📺 WATCHLIST — FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
⚾ MLB: Angels at Nationals — Nationals Park — 3:45 p.m. — ABTV
⚾ MLB: Dodgers at Marlins — loanDepot Park — 4:10 p.m. — SNLA
⚽ NWSL: Summit FC at Angel City FC — BMO Stadium — 7:00 p.m. — Victory
⚾ MLB: Padres at Giants — Oracle Park — 7:15 p.m. — Apple TV
Watch for: Josue De Paula, 21 years old and called up straight from Double-A, is expected to make his major-league debut in Miami with Ohtani on the injured list until at least Sept. 23.
Coming up: Garcia-Benn at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday. USC hosts Louisiana, UNLV travels to North Texas and Hawai’i hosts New Mexico State on Saturday, and the Galaxy host Seattle. The Raiders open against Miami at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday, and San Diego FC hosts Philadelphia.
🎟️ GOING TO A GAME?
Get-in prices across Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawaii — brought to you by TickPick, the no-hidden-fee ticket marketplace.
🥊 Garcia vs. Benn — T-Mobile Arena (Saturday) — $145
🏈 Louisiana at USC — Coliseum (Saturday) — $15
🏈 San Diego State at UCLA — Rose Bowl (Saturday) — $30
🏈 Dolphins at Raiders — Allegiant Stadium (Sunday) — $205
🏈 Cardinals at Chargers — SoFi Stadium (Sunday) — $25
🌴 TST TRIVIA
The Rams and 49ers played the first NFL regular-season game ever held in Australia on Thursday at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. How many people were in the building?
Answer at the bottom.
🎧 THE SPORTING TRIBUNE TODAY
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Today’s episode: a 27-7 opener on the other side of the world, what Myles Garrett said about his knee, a Dodgers team arriving in Miami without Ohtani, and a big fight weekend in Las Vegas.
› Listen to the latest episode
Trivia answer: 100,021.
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