One of the Rams’ biggest challenges last season was finding a kicker to replace Greg Zuerlein, who signed with the Cowboys in free agency. After giving Samuel Sloman, Austin MacGinnis, Lirim Hajrullahu and Kai Forbath all a chance at some point, the Rams finally landed on Matt Gay.
And they should be so thankful that they did.
Gay turned out to be not only an immediate solution to the Rams’ kicking woes, but is likely to be their long-term kicker, too. Gay made 14 of his 16 field goal attempts with Los Angeles and didn’t miss in his final six games of the season, including the playoffs.
New special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis shared his early thoughts on Gay in a conversation with J.B. Long, coming away impressed with how consistent the kicker is despite being fairly new to the job after mostly playing soccer.
“He’s got great technique. For doing it for not that long, it’s amazing how quickly he picked up the technique – so it’s repeatable, which is what you want,” he said. “The other thing I would say is he’s got the power in his leg to be a good NFL placekicker, which a lot of guys don’t have. So those are the two things that stuck out to me.”
DeCamillis was the Jaguars’ special teams coordinator last season and for as bad as the Rams’ kicking issues were, Jacksonville’s were undoubtedly worse. They cycled through six kickers and only made 72% of their field goal attempts, third-worst in the NFL.
They actually had Gay on their radar, DeCamillis said, and he wishes they would’ve picked him up.
“Unfortunately, we went through six kickers here in Jacksonville this past year due to injury and due to some other things, COVID, all that kind of stuff. But he was a guy that was on our radar. I wish we would’ve picked him up. You guys got him and I’m glad we got him now,” DeCamillis said.
Gay was a former fifth-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2019 but the team gave up on him after he struggled as a rookie. The Rams are happy to have him now and the hope is he can be their kicker for the foreseeable future.
If he keeps kicking the way he did last season, there’s no reason to believe that won’t be the case.
