INGLEWOOD, Calif. — When quarterback Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams offense took the field with just under 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter, the team trailed division rival San Francisco 49ers by 10 points and was off to an 0-3 start.

But it’s a position Stafford, in his 16th NFL season, has been in before. Entering the fourth quarter, he had 44 career game-winning drives in the fourth quarter, or OT, the most among active quarterbacks.

And on Sunday afternoon, Stafford topped that by leading the Rams down the field on a drive that ended with a Kyren Williams touchdown to tie the score, and then a second drive that ended with a Joshua Karty field goal with five seconds left to give LA a 27-24 win.

According to ESPN Research, Stafford’s 45th winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime is the seventh since the merger in 1970.

Stafford got the ball back on a tie game with 42 seconds left after a Rams defensive stop at the San Francisco 45 forced the 49ers to punt. And as the sideline celebrated the stop, he saw defensive captain Kobie Turner looking around, the calm radiating from the quarterback.

“Everybody’s cheering and everybody’s super excited and Matt’s just quiet,” Turner said. “He’s just calm and he goes out on the field, it looks like a normal day.

“And when you see that presence, never too high, never too low, and you see the fire with which he plays, then you know and you have every confidence that he will put us in the best situations.”

The Rams’ win in their first home game moved their record to 1-2, avoiding an 0-3 start for the first time since 2011, when the team finished 2-14.

“There’s no doubt in the fourth quarter with the ball in my hand, I’ll have a little extra heart rate,” Stafford said. “But I’m excited about those opportunities. That’s what I want. I want to be in those moments.

“I feel like the guys on our team know that and hopefully they feed off that and know that if we defend and can get the ball back for the offense, (we) have a guy that’s done that before. And I know the guys in the huddle believe in each other. No matter what the circumstances are, we’ve got a damn good chance.”

According to ESPN Research, the 14-point comeback win was the biggest under coach Sean McVay and the franchise’s biggest comeback since 2012.

“What a performance by our group, just keep fighting, keep fighting,” McVay said. “And there’s a lot of grit. There’s a lot of resilience in this group. And it’s just one game, but I’m really proud of them. … A lot of grit, a lot of perseverance. I’m really proud of this group.”

McVay’s postgame press conference was a far cry from a week ago, when the Rams lost 41-10 to the Arizona Cardinals in a game where he said the only positive thing to take away from the game was that “it’s over now and we can move on.” In that loss, the Rams lost their second top receiver in two weeks, as Cooper Kupp sprained his left ankle and will be out for an extended period of time.

But during that press conference, McVay challenged himself and his team to figure out how to deal with the loss, despite starting the season 0-2.

“I saw a team respond after a really humbling week last week,” McVay said after the win over the 49ers. “And three hours is never going to define you as good or bad unless you let it. And we’ve got to do a good job of building on this.”