The Rams' kicking problem isn't Blake Grupe's knee. It's that the only man on the sideline who could attempt an extra point when Grupe went down was the punter.
Ethan Evans made it. He kicked the go-ahead extra point in a game the Rams lost anyway, which is the part worth sitting with. The emergency plan worked exactly as designed and it still wasn't close to enough. The extra point stopped being a formality years ago, when the league pushed it back and turned a ceremony into a kick that gets blocked. Evans converted a real one under real pressure. That doesn't make him a kicker.
Grupe got hurt doing a thing kickers now have to do. He was attempting a tackle on a kickoff return in his Rams debut, left the game doubtful to return, and didn't return. He walked out of SoFi Stadium on crutches with a brace on his leg. The Rams put him on injured reserve, which costs them at least four weeks.
The league redesigned the kickoff two seasons ago to bring returns back, and it worked. It also made the kicker a tackler. The old alignment let him jog along behind the play. The new one makes him the last man between a returner and the end zone. Coverage units were rebuilt for that. Roster math wasn't. Every team carries one kicker and no backup, and the contingency is a punter or a linebacker who kicked in high school.
Los Angeles is living inside that contingency now. The in-house answer is Evans, and Evans deserves credit for the Arizona kick. He does not deserve the job. A kicker spends his week on field goal mechanics, on the snap and the hold, on the wind in a specific stadium. A punter spends his week punting. Hand Evans the next month and you're asking a specialist to work a second job, and if he also takes kickoffs you've put your punter into the exact collision that ended Grupe's month.
So sign someone. My read is the Rams will, before Oct. 25, because the alternative is untenable for a team that wins or loses on margin. That's the piece of this nobody has priced. The injury doesn't just remove a leg. It removes the staff's willingness to use one. A coach who doesn't trust his kicker's range stops sending him out on fourth down from plus territory. He punts. He goes for it. He changes the shape of an offense that has to scratch for points every week to begin with.
The proof is in the game that just happened. Arizona won with Jacoby Brissett going 24-of-35 for 218 yards, no touchdowns, one interception and a 39.4 QBR. Tyler Allgeier carried 18 times for 38 yards, a 2.1 average. Whatever else happened at SoFi, it was not an offensive showcase on either side. In a game shaped like that, the kicking margin is the whole margin.
Does it change the season? Plainly: no, not the ceiling. The Rams aren't a contender that a kicker sinks. It changes the floor by a game, and in the NFC a home playoff game and a road one are separated by exactly that. If Los Angeles misses the playoffs, Grupe's knee won't be the reason. If they open the postseason on the road, it might be.
The case against me is easy. Teams stream kickers constantly. The gap between a released veteran and the injured starter is small, and the Rams can churn the bottom of the roster without consequence. That's right about talent and wrong about trust. The replacement isn't being asked to be as accurate as Grupe. He's being asked to be trusted in the fourth quarter of a one-score game, and trust is built in weeks, not in a Wednesday workout. A veteran with range restores it. A punter doesn't.
What would change my mind: if the Rams' offense spends the next month winning by two scores, none of this matters and I've overpriced a kicker.
My prediction, on the record. The Rams sign an outside kicker before Week 7 at Las Vegas on Oct. 25, and he struggles early, because a new kicker gets days with a new snapper and a new holder, not weeks. I expect the Rams to lose a game in the next four weeks that Grupe would have won. I expect it to be the one in Las Vegas. When Grupe is eligible again, he takes the job back, and the four weeks in between are the price of carrying one kicker and calling the punter a plan.
