Even with as accurate as Matt Gay was last season, making all but two of his field goal attempts, the Los Angeles Rams’ special teams unit was a letdown. Riley Dixon was a below-average punter and they got very little out of Brandon Powell in the return game, resulting in a 29th-place finish in Rick Gosselin’s annual special teams rankings.
Sean McVay must not have been pleased with the way the Rams performed on special teams because coordinator Joe DeCamillis was let go and there are sweeping changes happening across the unit.
Gay already signed with the Colts, long snapper Matthew Orzech landed with the Packers and Riley Dixon has returned to the Broncos. That leaves the Rams without their three primary specialists, none of whom have been replaced yet.
Powell is also a pending free agent and there hasn’t been any movement on that front. Nothing is imminent with Powell and one would think if the Rams were going to bring him back, they’d have done so already.
New special teams coordinator Chase Blackburn is going to have a special teams group that looks completely different than the one the Rams fielded last season. We don’t yet know who will be kicking or punting for the Rams, or even returning kicks when the season begins, but it’s obvious Blackburn and McVay didn’t love the group Los Angeles already had in place.
The only one who may have been hard to retain was Gay, considering he signed the largest free-agent deal ever for a kicker, earning $5.5 million per year from the Colts. That might’ve been tough for the Rams to match.
There are free agents available for Los Angeles to sign, including Robbie Gould, Mason Crosby and Randy Bullock, who Blackburn coached with the Titans last season. Andy Lee and Brett Kern are both available at punter, too. But the Rams haven’t been linked to any specialists in free agency yet.
The draft could be their best option, along with camp cuts later this summer. Expect them to draft a kicker if they don’t sign one soon, similar to the way they did in 2020 when they selected Sam Sloman on Day 3. It’s not the best use of assets, but they need a reliable kicker and an improved punter.
In the return game, the Rams don’t have an experienced return specialist on the roster. They absolutely should not put Cooper Kupp back there to return punts, and Tutu Atwell didn’t exactly look comfortable handling that as a rookie.
