Los Angeles is signing kicker Blake Grupe off the New York Jets' practice squad, per ESPN, after the Rams released kicker Mevis following kicking miscues in an overtime loss.
That is the shortest leash a specialist can get, and the timing says the Rams graded the result, not the process. Their offense held up its end in that game: Matthew Stafford went 40-of-54 for 383 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. You don't throw it 54 times, avoid the turnover, and lose in overtime because the quarterback was the problem. Buffalo's Tyler Bass went 3-for-3 on field goals in the same game, including a 49-yarder, which is the cruelest possible framing of the Rams' week.
Poaching a player off another team's practice squad means he lands on the 53, so Grupe is the Rams' kicker, not a stash. That matters more than the transaction line suggests. Kicking is the position where teams most reliably overreact to small samples, because the difference between a replacement-level kicker and a league-average one is a handful of attempts spread across a season. The Rams looked at Mevis and decided his handful was on the wrong side. Fine. But they will be making that same judgment about Grupe with the same sample size, and a mid-October kicker swap rarely changes a season. It changes one Sunday.
For the Jets, this is a real cost. They lose the kicker they were developing behind their starter, and they lose him for nothing, in October, with no chance to replace the insurance internally before the weekend. Practice-squad kickers exist so a team never has to hold an open tryout in November. New York now can.
My read: Grupe handles every kick in his first game, because that is the entire point of the move, and because the Rams cannot afford a platoon at a position they just admitted they misjudged. Who it hurts is Mevis, who goes from a 53-man job to the workout circuit, and whoever the Rams had penciled in as the emergency option. Who it helps is Grupe, who gets a season-long audition on a team with a real offense and therefore real kicker volume.
The thing that would prove me wrong is the thing that got Mevis fired: one miss from 40-plus in a one-score game, followed by a second kicker on the roster by Thanksgiving. That's how this position works, and the Rams just demonstrated they'll pull the lever fast.
