Is Kick Blocking Going to Be the Rams Achilles Heel for the Rest of the Season?
On Thursday night against the 49ers, the Rams’ kicker Joshua Karty lined up to kick a routine extra point to bring the Rams up 21-20 early in the fourth quarter. Karty was blocked from the left side, and the game eventually went into overtime, where the Niners went on to win 26-23. This marks the second extra point blocked this season, and the second game in the span of about 11 days that the Rams lost due to blocked kicks. What stings the most is that the offense and defense have played well. Even if there are some mistakes to point out, such as Kyren Williams’ fumble at the one-yard line, both units have played well enough to win both games, and yet it was the special teams that let them down. If not for these perfectly preventable plays, the Rams could be undefeated, sitting at 5-0 atop the football world.
In Week Two, the Titans blocked an extra point late in the game in garbage time, and no one seemed to give it any notice outside of talking about Terrance Ferguson’s chase-down tackle. Little did we know that this was a forecast for what would happen the next week. The Eagles blocked two field goals in back-to-back drives in the fourth quarter. One of these should have been a game-winning field goal to put a picture-perfect completion to another signature Matthew Stafford game-winning drive.
After the devastating Week Three loss to the Eagles, the Rams' special teams was already a topic of interest because of the two blocked field goals, as well as some of the way the Rams defended kickoffs. The kick blocking was mostly regarded as something the team would likely fix as the season went along. It helped that the Rams were supposed to be getting the return of left guard Steve Avila from an ankle injury to replace Beaux Limmer, who gave up the game-winning block against the Eagles. Even though Avila was a last-minute scratch, Justin Dedich played well instead of Limmer. In Week Four, the Rams looked terrific against the Colts from a kick blocking perspective, and Karty was perfect in his two field goals and three extra points. This helped the Rams come out on top of a thrilling game that came down to the wire.
In his last media conference, McVay was visibly frustrated with the two losses. Sean McVay himself expressed that he felt the adjustments they made after the Eagles game had fixed the problems that cost them that game. It didn’t come back to bite them in Week Four, and yet those problems came back against the 49ers. In his words, “I thought he had a good handle on it, and clearly I was not right in that.” McVay went on to emphasize getting the right players in the right places and using the correct techniques. This could mean a lot in coach speak, but it at least means that McVay and his coaching staff are going to be looking into how to fix their kick blocking problems during their long break before Week Six.
Optimistically, we can look to the return of Steve Avila. Avila was healthy for Week Five, but was played as a backup to Dedich in order to give him a full week of practice before playing in a game. Right tackle Rob Havenstein could also return after missing Week Five, and that would also help the Rams fix these blocking problems. At the end of the day, these losses are frustrating, but the problems are fixable before the end of the season. However, every week this continues, the more likely it is that this problem becomes the thing that will spell the Rams’ demise in the 2025 season.
