INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The Rams really don’t want to be the Puka Nacua show. They would rather be known as the team that welcomes drama even if it means having 100 kicks blocked this season.
Obviously, the Rams aren’t shooting themselves in the foot on purpose. But their special teams miscues this season does make you wonder how much time they spend in practice working on field goals.
It’s gotten so bad that Rams coach Sean McVay now has to manage close games around his poor kicking unit, like he did in Thursday night’s drama-filled, 26–23 overtime loss to the 49ers. McVay made the right decision to go for it on fourth-and-1 despite Kyren Williams getting stuffed to give the 49ers the upset victory on a night they were without Brock Purdy, Ricky Pearsall, Jauan Jennings, George Kittle and Nick Bosa.
Even if L.A.’s disastrous kicking unit allowed Joshua Karty to put the ball through the uprights, McVay’s defense wasn’t going to stop the Mac Jones and Kendrick Bourne show with 3:41 left in overtime.
McVay’s mistake was trusting one of his running backs to get the one yard. He even called a timeout to see whether the 49ers would tip their hand and still McVay decided to put the ball in the hands of a player who has struggled with ball security throughout his career.
“It was a bad call by me,” McVay said in his postgame press conference. “I’m sick right now. … I put our players in a [bad] spot.”
There wasn’t even supposed to be an extra period because the Rams were on the verge of completing a 14-point comeback before Williams fumbled on San Francisco’s one-yard line with 1:07 left in regulation.
Earlier in the game, backup running back Blake Corum failed to haul in a pitch from Stafford, which ended up costing the Rams at least three points. Or maybe none because the Rams don’t seem to know how to block defenders during field goals. They had two blocked kicks in the heartbreaking loss against the Eagles in Week 3 and had trouble blocking on Karty’s missed 53-yard attempt in the third quarter on Thursday. There was also a missed extra point by Karty in the fourth quarter that also dictated how Los Angeles operated down the stretch.
Instead of the Rams (3–2) putting pressure on coach Kyle Shanahan to do something with the ball at their own one-yard line with a one-point deficit or four-point deficit or eight-point deficit, the 49ers (4–1) just decided to kill some clock, which wasn’t the worst approach with all the self-inflected wounds Los Angeles committed.
At this rate it’s 50-50 on whether the Rams convert on a field goal. I know those odds aren’t far off when Matthew Stafford is taking a deep shot to Davante Adams, hoping that they don’t have to rely on special teams. Luckily for them, Karty made a 48-yard field goal to tie the game 23–23 with two seconds left in regulation.
These Rams could still very well win the NFC West, but they’re far from Super Bowl contenders, not when they can’t execute something as simple as kicking the ball over the outstretched hands of defenders. McVay is sick right now, but maybe he’ll wake up inspired Friday morning and practice a thousand better plays than what he dialed up on fourth-and-1 with the game on the line.
While we’re talking about practice, the Rams need to hire Aaron Donald as a running backs coach so he can use his superhuman strength to practice punching the ball away from L.A.’s ballcarriers. If Williams and Corum can win punch-out drills vs. Donald, then they’ll have impeccable ball security in games. They can also shadow Nacua in practice to learn how to not drop passes.
We should be talking right now about another special performance from Nacua (10 catches, 85 yards, TD) and Stafford (30-of-47 for 389 yards, 3 TDs). We should also be talking about the Rams’ other guys who stepped up.
Nacua is doing the heavy lifting, but his presence alone is why the Rams were able to dig out of a 14-point deficit vs. the short-handed 49ers. Stafford carved up the 49ers’ defense in the second half because they were so concerned with containing Nacua. McVay wisely dialed up plays for the seldom-used pass catchers not named Nacua and Adams. Rookie tight end Terrance Ferguson recorded his first career catch on a 21-yard play that gave L.A. a new set of downs to ignite the first scoring drive of the game. After Ferguson’s third-down conversion, second-year wide receiver Jordan Whittington hauled in passes of 22 and 11 yards before Stafford found a wide open Williams for the touchdown.
There was also a 20-yard pass to second-year tight end Davis Allen and a 34-yard play to last week’s hero Tutu Atwell. Getting the other guys involved, away from all the attention that Nacua drew from San Francisco, allowed Stafford to establish a rhythm for the second-half comeback.
Where did all that creativity go on fourth-and-1? The Rams had a ton of options and still McVay went with a simple run play. These Rams might be more pretenders than contenders. They can’t kick, they can’t secure the ball and now they lack creativity from their coach.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rams’ Latest Self-Inflicted Mistakes Suggest They’re Pretenders, Not Contenders.
