The Los Angeles Rams remained hot in the Bay Area.

Puka Nacua and the Rams beat the San Francisco 49ers 12-6 in a defensive game with big playoff implications.

The Rams (8-6) have won three straight games over the 49ers (6-8) and have swept the season series.

Los Angeles, which is on a three-game winning streak, is just a half-game behind the NFC West-leading Seattle Seahawks (8-5). Seattle hosts the Green Bay Packers on ‘Sunday Night Football.’

The 49ers dropped to last in the division with the loss. Their playoff hopes are in serious jeopardy.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

USA TODAY Sports provides the winners and losers from the NFC West battle:

Winners

Kickers

Rams kicker Joshua Karty and 49ers kicker Jake Moody were the only source of points.

Karty connected on all four of his field goal attempts and Moody made both of his.

Karty came into Week 15 having only made 77% of his field goal attempts on the season.

Punters

Rams punter Ethan Evans and 49ers punter Pat O’Donnell were busy, combining for 13 punts. Evans had six punts for 325 yards and O’Donnell had seven punts for 316 yards.

Puka Nacua

After producing 12 catches, 162 yards and a touchdown last week, the wideout tallied seven catches for 97 yards in the victory.

Nacua had an exceptional catch in the first quarter where he pinned the football on Charvarius Ward’s helmet as he was falling to the ground.

Nacua’s 51-yard reception in the fourth quarter was the longest play of the night.

He was the only Rams wide receiver with more than one catch. Cooper Kupp was held without a catch.  

Kyren Williams

Williams and Nacua were the Rams’ offense Thursday night. The Rams running back had 29 carries for 108 yards. It was his third 100-yard rushing game of the season.

Dre Greenlaw

Greenlaw made his season debut after being activated off injured reserve. It was the linebacker’s first game since suffering a torn Achilles in Super Bowl 58.

The inside linebacker got the start in his long-awaited return; however, he was unable to play the entire game.

Still, he finished with eight tackles in the loss.

The 49ers’ social media team deserves a shoutout for their clever announcement regarding Greenlaw’s return. They didn’t forget about Dre.

Fred Warner

Warner continues to showcase why he’s arguably the best inside linebacker in the NFL.

The 49ers’ leading tackler compiled a game-high 15 tackles and was all over the field in the loss.

Losers

Deebo Samuel, 49ers wide receivers

Samuel said he was frustrated over not getting the ball enough this season. The 49ers attempted to feature him early, but he wasn’t very effective.

Samuel dropped the football on a slant route in the third quarter when he had nothing but green grass in front of him and could’ve scored. The 49ers had to settle for a field goal on the drive.

San Francisco wide receivers had six total catches.

49ers’ offense

The 49ers’ offense has been decimated by injuries this year. They miss left tackle Trent Williams, running back Christian McCaffrey and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, who are all on injured reserve.

The 49ers’ offense was held to 191 total yards.

De’Vondre Campbell

According to 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, Campbell refused to enter the game in the third quarter when asked to check in to replace linebacker Dre Greenlaw.

The Prime Video cameras captured footage of Campbell, helmet in hand, walking off the field and heading to the locker room.

Rams’ first-half offense

Nacua had that highlight catch in the first quarter, but the first half was littered with lowlights for the Rams.

Nacua had three of Los Angeles’ four total receptions in the first half and the Rams had just 23 receiving yards when they entered the locker.

Rams QB Matthew Stafford was 4-of-12 passing through the first two quarters.

In the age of the transfer portal, draft eligible opt-outs and lots of movement on the coaching carousel, trying to predict winners in all of college football’s bowl games would seem to be a fool’s errand. But we’re just the fools to do it.

Our panel of expert prognosticators is back one last time to try and figure out who will win each contest in the Football Bowl Subdivision’s postseason. This year, of course, that includes a quartet of first-round playoff games at campus sites.

The fun begins this Saturday and continues all the way through the start of the new year, so check back on this page often if you want to see how our staff soothsayers are doing.

The Miami Dolphins released veteran wide receiver Odell Beckham, Jr., the team announced Friday.

Once he clears waivers, he becomes a free agent and can sign with any team.

The 32-year-old Beckham did not practice this week ahead of Miami’s game against the Houston Texans on Sunday.

Beckham saw action in nine games this season, catching only nine passes for 55 yards.

The three-time Pro Bowler signed a one-year deal worth $3 million and could have been paid $8.25 million with incentives. After off-season knee surgery, Beckham did not make his season debut until Week 5.

All things Dolphins: Latest Miami Dolphins news, schedule, roster, stats, injury updates and more.

Beckham has suited up for four teams (Cleveland Browns, Los Angeles Rams, Baltimore Ravens, and Dolphins) in the last four seasons after spending his first five seasons with the New York Giants. He helped the Rams win Super Bowl LVI, although he tore his ACL in the game, causing him to miss the entire 2022 season.

Rookie Bronny James had his best game as a professional basketball player Thursday.

Playing in his first G League road game for the South Bay Lakers, James scored a career-high 30 points in a 106-100 loss to the Valley Suns in Tempe, Arizona.

James, the son of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, made 13-of-23 shots from the field, including 3-for-9 on 3-pointers, and contributed three rebounds, two assists, one steal and one block in 25 minutes against the Suns. Those were his first 3-point makes of the season after missing 10 attempts in the G League. He scored eight points in the first quarter, five in the second, four in the third and 13 in the fourth

It was his fourth G League game – and first G League game on the road after initial reports indicated he planned to in only G League home games. However, after discussion about what’s best for Bronny’s three-year development plan, James and the Lakers decided it was best that he play in select G League road games, too.

Following Thursday’s game, James averages 14 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists and shoots 40.4% from the field and 15.8 on 3-pointers. His previous high was 16 points.

All things Lakers: Latest Los Angeles Lakers news, schedule, roster, stats, injury updates and more.

The 6-3, 20-year-old guard has also appeared in seven games and scored two points for the Los Angeles Lakers as he shuttles back and forth between the NBA and G League.

Bronny was the No. 55 pick in the second round of the 2024 draft. He was moving up draft boards before he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest just before the start of his freshman season at Southern California in July 2023.

Earlier this season, LeBron and Bronny became the first father-son combo to play in the NBA at the same time.

(This story was updated with more information.)

Before the sack even officially existed in the NFL, the “New York Sack Exchange” was racking up opposing quarterbacks in bull market numbers.

Yet the mystique of those 1980s New York Jets teams was a microcosm of the long-wayward franchise, their success fleeting and often coming at great cost and even in spite of the often-feuding protagonists.

Regardless, NFL Films and ESPN have shone their spotlight on the famous (and infamous) four-man defensive line of those Jets squads in the newest installment of the Emmy Award-winning “30 for 30” series, which premieres Friday night at 8 p.m. ET. And unlike the mythologizing associated with many of NFL Films’ projects, this is an unvarnished look at a talented but dysfunctional quartet sharing its story in its own words, on its own terms.

“Generally speaking, it is a deviation from our PR-friendly past, shall we say,” co-director James Weiner told USA TODAY Sports, which was also given an early screening of the film.

“We were able to get into the rawness of their relationship, and their hostility and their animosity. I think what allowed us to do that was really their age. I think you reach a certain point where you don’t care anymore how people (perceive you).

All things Jets: Latest New York Jets news, schedule, roster, stats, injury updates and more.

“The fact that this story marinated for 40 years, I think that’s what allowed us to do this.”

It was also a personal passion project for Weiner, a lifelong Jets fan and New York City native who’d crusaded at NFL Films for a quarter-century to feature faded Jets stars Mark Gastineau, Joe Klecko, Marty Lyons and Abdul Salaam before finally getting it Gang-Greenlit.

“I would argue that the ‘Sack Exchange’ is still the biggest thing to happen to the Jets since Joe Namath,” added Weiner, who was born after the Hall of Fame quarterback’s prime years in the 1960s.

Despite its flawed dynamics, the “Sack Exchange” burst onto the scene in 1981 with monster returns, fueling the Jets’ first winning season and playoff appearance since Namath guided the legendary ’68 team to the franchise’s only Super Bowl appearance. Gastineau and Klecko remain the only teammates in league history to have at least 20 sacks in the same season – though, in true Jets fashion, that’s an unofficial record given sacks weren’t officially recorded by the NFL until, yep, 1982.

The Jets’ 66 total sacks in ’81 – their front four accounting for 54 – were also an unofficial mark. However their bull market gave way to a Bears market in 1984, when Chicago officially claimed the league sack record it still owns with 72.

Yet, like the core players who became the iconic nucleus of the ’85 Bears, the “Sack Exchange” was imbued with ample ability. And personality.

The sleek Gastineau was an explosive athlete – easily identifiable thanks to his mustache, a mane of dark hair that couldn’t be contained by his helmet and those signature (and controversial) sack dances. Screaming off the left side, he was something of a forerunner of the modern edge rusher. (He was also something of a forerunner to Travis Kelce as a crossover celebrity, Gastineau’s profile raised when he began dating Hollywood superstar Brigitte Nielsen in 1988.)

Klecko was a menace on the other side, intimidating and strong as a bull – there’s even footage of him (successfully) wrestling a bear. He received All-Pro recognition at defensive end, tackle and nose tackle during a sterling 12-year career.

Lyons was the group’s lone first-round draft pick, joining the Jets in 1979 after a star-studded run playing for Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant at Alabama. He says his career took off after he switched positions with Klecko, moving to defensive tackle in 1980. Salaam, ever unsung but dependable, was the left DT … a figurative and literal buffer between Gastineau and the Klecko-Lyons couplet on the right side.

Method Man, a Hempstead, New York, native who narrates the doc, said: “Who were these four guys? It was like watching a superhero team being formed.”

Before it came apart at the seams.

This was no band of brothers. The insecure Gastineau says he was afraid of Klecko, the team’s leader, who himself was aggravated by the other’s flamboyance and often selfish and aloof behavior. Lyons was and is close with Klecko but also frequently clashed with Gastineau. The quiet but steadier Salaam attempted to hold them all together.

“If you’re a Jet fan, it’s a must-watch,” Lyons told USA TODAY Sports.

“You’ll learn a lot by watching it. And you’ll also learn you can work together if you respect one another and you have that same common goal – and the common goal we had was we wanted to win, and we wanted to get to the quarterback, and we wanted to do something special. And we were able to accomplish that.

“Nobody can take it away from us. ’30 for 30’ brought it back to life.”

The film follows the stratospheric rise and fall of the ‘Sack Exchange,’ which carried the Jets to the AFC championship game during the strike-shortened 1982 season. But they wouldn’t reach the Super Bowl then. Or ever. A heartbreaking double-overtime loss to the Cleveland Browns in the 1986 divisional playoff round – Gastineau’s personal foul on Bernie Kosar late in regulation helped the Browns send the game into sudden death – was effectively the unit’s last hurrah.

“The sad part about the whole thing is, for so many years we were teammates, but we really didn’t get to know one another. We didn’t socialize off the field, we didn’t socialize during the week,” said Lyons, sharing that Gastineau did much of his training at a gym away from the Jets’ Long Island facility at the time.

“We never had the opportunity to know who Mark Gastineau was, and I don’t think that Mark really has a clue on who I am, or who Joe Klecko is.

“That’s sad.”

As is the plight of Salaam, formerly Larry Faulk, his name translated to “Soldier of Peace.” He recently died at the age of 71 after years of declining health. The least-known player from the “Sack Exchange,” Salaam, Gastineau’s best friend on the team, is credited with binding the group until he was traded following the 1983 season.

“(Salaam) was the peacemaker in 1981, and he was the peacemaker in 2024,” said Weiner, admitting it still wasn’t easy to get the four men together for a sitdown at the New York Stock Exchange, site of some memorable marketing for the “Sack Exchange” four decades earlier, prior to Salaam’s death in October.

“He was in the middle of everything, and I do think when Abdul Salaam got traded and left the team, that was the beginning of the downfall of the ‘Sack Exchange.’ He is a key figure for sure in this story.”

All NFL news on and off the field. Sign up for USA TODAY’s 4th and Monday newsletter.

It’s also a story with tangents, notably some extremely troubling personal demons shared by Gastineau. His recently revealed confrontation with Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, whom Gastineau blames for giving his single-season sack record (22 set in 1984, when teams played 16 games) to Michael Strahan in 2001, underscores his inability to shed the past and an obsession with personal glory that often made him a pariah in his own locker room.

IS MARK GASTINEAU A HALL OF FAMER? Marty Lyons says he isn’t sure

“We did not like each other, and we’ve both said that,” said Klecko, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2023 after a 35-year wait, his enshrinement an event that brought the group together and shed fresh attention on it while breathing new life into the “30 for 30” project.

“But I’ve said in the past, too – it made us both (he and Gastineau) better.”

Yet this is also a story about love and redemption and, perhaps, letting bygones be bygones for men who rarely hung out collectively as teammates nor in the decades since they retired.

“The shoot at the Stock Exchange, to me, became a group therapy session,” co-director Ken Rodgers told USA TODAY Sports. “It might not have solved the problems, but it put them on the table and allowed them to just admit, ‘Hey, there’s some good and bad in our history, and we are who we are now.’ I don’t think anyone’s going to watch this film and think anything other than, ‘Wow, that’s the truth behind the relationships.’ Relationships are messy, they are complicated.

“I just feel like this film was honest. And credit to those guys for not trying to present a different story (or) a sanitized story. … They’re at the age now where, hey you’ve got to address this and let it go, or it’s gonna eat you up.

“To sugarcoat it wouldn’t be a realistic portrayal of what it’s like to be a Jets fan and to love these guys. The realistic portrayal is, this is just another chapter of frustrating history, but yet we still can’t help loving it.”

A story from the 1980s appropriately ends with Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” as the outro. It seems the remaining members of the “Sack Exchange,” hit hard by Salaam’s passing, have finally found something of a lasting peace.

“Every Sunday we would line up together, and we would go out there and compete as a unit,” said Lyons, 67, who is grateful the film illuminates his past glory and regrets for his children, who are now in their thirties and forties yet were too young to enjoy his heyday.

“I would hope that everybody’s able to move on. It’s been a long time to carry any type of resentment, animosity, jealousy – it eats you up from the inside out.”

***

Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Nate Davis on X, formerly Twitter, @ByNateDavis.

By embracing Bill Belichick’s plan for North Carolina, the Tar Heels show they’re willing to go ‘all-in’ on football.
Bill Belichick’s staff will command a pretty penny. Then there’s the matter of funding the roster he’ll need to engineer a turnaround.
Long an underachiever, a competent coach and financial investment would give North Carolina a path to a turnaround within the ACC.

“I have no idea where that came from. I don’t have a 400-page document,” Belichick said Thursday at his introductory news conference. “And, to think, I was just gonna hand it (over)? I mean, c’mon.’

Exhale, Tar Heels fans. This should be a relief. I’m leery of anyone who needs a manifesto to find success. Anyway, everyone has a plan ’til they go up against a mean machine full of blue-chip talent.

What strikes me more than Belichick’s plan or even that a legendary NFL coach wants to rekindle his career in college football is that North Carolina ponied up to make this happen.

Implementing Belichick’s plan, however many pages long it is, won’t be done cheaply.

North Carolina hiring Belichick announces that the Tar Heels are serious about committing – philosophically and financially – to becoming a much bigger factor in college football. Athletic director Bubba Cunningham affirmed Thursday that the Tar Heels will be “all-in” on football – just as they are with their blue-blooded basketball program.

“Our future is incredibly bright,” Cunningham said.

BEST OF BEST: Hunter, Jeanty lead college football All-America team

PLAYOFF PREDICTION: Our picks for every game through the national title

UNC football commits financially to Bill Belichick

This is no whimsical attempt by North Carolina at turning this season’s 6-6 record into 7-5.

Belichick didn’t come to North Carolina to make the Birmingham Bowl. He’s serious about winning, and winning requires investment.

Now, as much as ever, money talks in college football. In this era of paying athletes, pauper programs won’t stand much chance at national prominence. Doesn’t matter who’s on the sideline if you don’t have a pile greenbacks funding the operation.

The Tar Heels started by awarding Belichick a five-year deal. His annual salary is $10 million before bonuses. That’s a nugget of the gold required to compete with the big boys. Belichick will want to hire a top-notch coaching and player personnel staff. He’s already pegged former NFL general manager Michael Lombardi to be the team’s general manager. Then there’s the matter of funding a roster that can contend for the College Football Playoff.  

Never mind that the Tar Heels won just three ACC games this season or that they’ve eclipsed nine victories just once in the past 27 seasons. Check out SMU. Two years ago, the Mustangs finished 7-6 in the American Athletic Conference. Now, they’re in the playoff in their first ACC season, showing that a quick turnaround is possible from the conference.

Simply hiring Belichick, who won six Super Bowls as a head coach to go with two as a defensive coordinator, should inspire some belief from the booster class.

Belichick’s term sheet, obtained by USA TODAY Sports, earmarks more than $16 million for assistant coaches, strength and conditioning staff and support staff, plus another $13 million in revenue sharing, presumably for athletes.

Bill Belichick can’t just outwit his college coaching peers

While Belichick’s task at North Carolina shouldn’t be viewed as impossible, let’s not make it out to be easy, either.

Belichick understands the game on a level few do, but it’s not enough to know X’s and O’s. This isn’t like if Shohei Ohtani went down to play Single-A baseball. Dabo Swinney knows ball. So do Kirby Smart, Steve Sarkisian and countless others.

Big-league minds coach at this level, so a North Carolina revolution won’t be as simple as rolling out the football and trying to have Belichick outwit his foes.

Some would compare UNC’s momentous hire to Colorado rolling the dice with Deion Sanders, but Sanders brought college experience from his successful stint galvanizing Jackson State. Belichick comes with no experience – zippo – in college ball.

Even as college football morphs toward a professional model, recruiting high school prospects remains the sport’s bread and butter. Belichick has zero experience persuading teenagers to come play for a 72-year-old man, and he’ll play catchup in a sport paced by ace recruiters like Smart, Sarkisian and Oregon’s Dan Lanning. Within the ACC, Miami’s Mario Cristobal and Georgia Tech’s Brent Key perform well on the trail.

Past NFL coaches like Herm Edwards, Lovie Smith and Bill Callahan failed coaching in college. Jim Harbaugh thrived at either level, but, unlike Belichick, Harbaugh started his coaching career in college. Dave Wannstedt found modest success at Pittsburgh after a long NFL career.

Lane Kiffin gradually found his way in college football after being fired from the NFL as a wunderkind.

Nick Saban, Belichick’s friend and college football’s GOAT, made an NFL pitstop, but he’d already carved his name in the college game before Alabama hired him.

Saban, in addition to being a defensive mastermind, became the greatest recruiter in the sport’s history. Pretty dang-good motivator, too.

And although Saban could turn cantankerous, he oozes charisma compared to Belichick.

College football, while more akin to the NFL than it was a decade ago, still is not the NFL, and the list of former NFL coaches who failed as first-time college coaches is longer than those who succeeded.

Still, maybe hiring Belichick is worth the risk. At least it shows UNC’s willingness to invest in football.

Forget the manifesto. Combine a competent coach with some cash in the coffers, and you’ve got a start toward success.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.

The United States women’s national soccer team is ending a roller-coaster year in a familiar spot.

The USWNT finished the year at No. 1 in the FIFA world rankings, a spot they’ve held for all but 22 months since 2008. But this comes after they spent five months of this year out of the top three, an unheard of nadir for the four-time World Cup champions, before returning to No. 1 after winning gold at the Paris Olympics.

Reigning World Cup champion Spain is at No. 2 in the rankings released Friday, while Germany moved up to No. 3. European champion England and Sweden round out the top five.

The USWNT has pretty much owned the top of the FIFA rankings since they began in 2003, occupying the No. 1 spot without interruption from June 2017 until August 2023. In fact, they’d never dropped below No. 2 until August 2023, when they fell to No. 3 on the heels of their worst showing ever at a World Cup or Olympics.

The Americans rebounded to finish 2023 at No. 2, but fell to fourth in the March rankings after their first-ever loss on home soil to Mexico. When the June rankings came out, the USWNT had dropped to fifth.

But the arrival of Emma Hayes has rejuvenated the team. She is unbeaten (13 wins, two ties) in her first 15 games as head coach. That includes six wins at the Paris Games, which culminated with the Americans beating old foe Brazil 1-0 for their fifth Olympic gold medal.