MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Myles Garrett finally acknowledged his knee injury is more serious than he had been letting on after his quiet debut for the Los Angeles Rams in their season-opening defeat in Australia.
The reigning AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year made zero tackles and no impact on the game during the Rams' 27-7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Friday.
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Los Angeles Rams outside linebacker Myles Garrett, centre, works out during a practice session for an NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers., in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026.(AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)
Los Angeles Rams safety Quentin Lake (37) and cornerback Jaylen Watson (35) celebrate after Lake intercepted a pass against the San Francisco 49ers in the first half of an NFL football game in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Doug Benc)
Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford passes against the San Francisco 49ers during the second half of an NFL football game, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Melbourne, Australia. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)
Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Davante Adams is tackled by San Francisco 49ers cornerback Upton Stout during the second half of an NFL football game, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Melbourne, Australia. (AP Photo/Scott Barbour)
Fans watch during the second half of an NFL football game between the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Melbourne, Australia. (AP Photo/Scott Barbour)
Although Garrett missed much of training camp and the Rams' recent weeks of practices to rest his knee, the superstar and the Rams had not floated the possibility he would be unable to play at his best when he began his 10th NFL season. Before his 15-hour flight back to LA, Garrett finally acknowledged he isn't at 100% health.
“This was the worst version of myself that I've put out there, and I've got to be better,” Garrett said at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. “I've got to find a way to recover and get back to the player I know I can be and I've shown that I've been before.”
Garrett didn’t want to discuss details of his knee or his overall health after finishing without a tackle for only the fourth time in 135 career NFL games. He wouldn’t even say which knee is injured.
“I wasn’t the player that I wanted to be, and I feel like I wasn’t the player I’ve been before when I’ve stepped onto that field,” Garrett said. “I’ve got to do what I can to get back to that.”
Garrett missed only two games in his final five seasons with the Cleveland Browns, who traded him to Los Angeles in the summer.
Garrett's ineffectiveness was just one problem for the Rams' revamped defense, which added the NFL's best pass rusher and top cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson to a group that reached the NFC championship game last season.
Although McDuffie had a solid game in Melbourne, the overall day was a nightmare. Watson was beaten for a touchdown by Mike Evans, and nobody stepped up with a standout effort while the 49ers scored the game's final 24 points.
But LA's offense wasn't any better, and the result was a 20-point defeat — the biggest taken by the Rams since November 2024.
The Rams are the first team to begin a season with the reigning NFL MVP and AP Defensive Player of the Year in their lineup, but Matthew Stafford wasn't nearly up to last season's standard. The 38-year-old quarterback went 15 of 25 for 155 yards and an interception, throwing no touchdown passes after throwing at least one in every regular-season game last year.
“‘Surprised’ is not the word,” Stafford said. “Disappointed in the way it worked out for us. Obviously, didn’t move the ball consistently enough, didn’t put enough points up on the board to give ourselves a chance to be in the game. Every game and every season is a new one. Go out there and find a way to clean things up, move forward and be better.”
There is a bright side for the defense: They'll add a three-time AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year to their lineup soon, possibly even next Monday night when they host the New York Giants.
Aaron Donald stayed home from Australia after coming out of retirement just two weeks ago, but the 35-year-old star will soon be on the defensive line with Garrett.
That won't make the long flight home any easier, but the season is too new for the Rams to be truly discouraged.
“We knew we were going to face some adversity this season,” Garrett said. “It’s game one. We've got to find if we are as resilient as we’re saying.”
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
Los Angeles Rams outside linebacker Myles Garrett, centre, works out during a practice session for an NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers., in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026.(AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)
Los Angeles Rams safety Quentin Lake (37) and cornerback Jaylen Watson (35) celebrate after Lake intercepted a pass against the San Francisco 49ers in the first half of an NFL football game in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Doug Benc)
Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford passes against the San Francisco 49ers during the second half of an NFL football game, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Melbourne, Australia. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)
Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Davante Adams is tackled by San Francisco 49ers cornerback Upton Stout during the second half of an NFL football game, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Melbourne, Australia. (AP Photo/Scott Barbour)
Fans watch during the second half of an NFL football game between the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Melbourne, Australia. (AP Photo/Scott Barbour)
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden is holding an election on Sunday that will determine whether a conservative leader remains in charge and a hard-right party wins ministerial jobs for the first time, or whether the center-left returns to power.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is seeking a second four-year term at the helm of the European Union nation that is also NATO’s newest member. His predecessor hopes to win the job back. The question of who will govern has taken up more space than actual policy issues.
More than 8 million people in the nation of about 10.6 million people are eligible to vote in the election for the 349-seat parliament in Stockholm, the Riksdag, which will elect the next prime minister.
Kristersson has led Sweden since 2022 with a three-party center-right coalition. It relies on outside support from the Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigration party that has far-right roots but has moved toward the political mainstream, for a parliamentary majority. If the right is re-elected, it can expect Cabinet posts this time.
He's up against Magdalena Andersson of the center-left Social Democrats, a party that more often than not led Swedish governments since World War II. Andersson served as prime minister from 2021 until she lost power at the last election.
Experts say the campaign has been fragmented and incoherent, with policy questions such as how health care should be organized drowned out by the question of which parties will be able to put together a government.
“Crime has come down, inflation has come down. So these topics are not really what people discuss," said Zeth Isaksson, a sociologist in electoral behavior at Stockholm University. "People discuss who is going to be in government, and that’s what the election is about.”
There are two major political blocs: one with four parties on the right and another with four parties on the left. So the big question is not so much which party wins as which side can put together a majority. Individual parties need a minimum 4% of the vote to win parliamentary seats.
On the face of it, “it would be a sensation if the opposition parties, having been ahead in the opinion polls pretty much for four years since the last election, didn’t now win a majority,” said Nicholas Aylott, associate professor of political science at Södertörn University.
But he said that an “extremely defensive” campaign by the Social Democrats may have cost them some support, leaving some voters wondering why they should support the party. The right-wing bloc's hope of convincing voters that it's more united than its rivals may have had “a little impact,” he added.
One significant thing is different in this election. The Sweden Democrats, who in 2022 took 20.5% of the vote to become the biggest party on the right, can expect Cabinet seats if power doesn't change hands.
Kristersson announced in April that his conservative Moderates would allow them into government if the right has a majority — though he would remain prime minister, even if the Sweden Democrats are the stronger party.
The Sweden Democrats were founded in the 1980s by people who had been active in right-wing extremist groups, including neo-Nazis. They toned down their rhetoric and expelled openly racist members under Jimmie Åkesson, who has led them since 2005 and overseen their growth from what was once a marginal party.
“There’s some, I won’t say fear, but trepidation, apprehension about the possibility of Sweden Democrat ministers,” Aylott said, and the Social Democrats recently have tried to exploit that.
But even as parties on the populist right gain elsewhere in Europe, for instance in a far-right triumph in a weekend state election in Germany, the election may reinforce the impression that the Sweden Democrats “have peaked to some extent,” Isaksson said.
Not so much. “The biggest threat to Sweden’s security is from the war in Ukraine and there is almost complete consensus in Sweden about support for Ukraine and deep antipathy towards Russia,” Aylott said.
Sweden's Psychological Defense Agency said that the country's election isn't Russia's top priority, as that broad support reduces the incentive for Moscow to interfere.
However, just over a week before the election, Expo magazine published a report alleging that a civil servant working in parliament for the Sweden Democrats had spread Russian state narratives on social networks. She is the partner of the head of the party's coordination office with the government, Gustav Gellerbrant.
Gellerbrant said her posts were taken out of context and were meant as irony and sarcasm. He said he decided to go on parental leave to avoid shifting the focus of the election campaign.
Kristersson, who said that “there is no room for pro-Russian narratives in Sweden," welcomed that decision.
After decades of post-World War II neutrality and centuries of broader nonalignment with major powers, Sweden joined NATO in 2024 as the trans-Atlantic military alliance’s 32nd member. The move to join was initiated by Andersson's government after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and completed under Kristersson.
Sweden's Center Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist, left, campaigns with former party leader Annie Lööf in Stockholm, Sweden, Saturday Sept. 5, 2026, ahead of the general election on Sept. 13. (Stefan Jerrevång/TT via AP)
Sweden Democrats party leader Jimmie Åkesson (SD) presents the party's election manifesto for 2026 at Stora torget in Nyköping, Sweden, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. (Magnus Lejhall/TT News Agency via AP)
Sweden Democrats party leader Jimmie Åkesson (SD) presents the party's election manifesto for 2026 at Stora torget in Nyköping, Sweden, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. (Magnus Lejhall/TT News Agency via AP)
Sweden's Social Democratic Party leader Magdalena Andersson gives a speech in Stockholm, Sweden, Saturday Sept. 5, 2026, ahead of general election on Sept. 13. (Jonathan Näckstrand/TT via AP)
Swedish Moderate Party Ministers, from left, Pål Jonson, Ulf Kristersson, Gunnar Strömmer, Elisabeth Svantesson and Maria Malmer Stenergard hold an election rally in Malmö, Sweden, Saturday Sept. 5, 2026, ahead of general election on Sept. 13. (Johan Nilsson/TT via AP)
