Rams Cut Kicker Mevis, Sign Blake After McVay's Postgame Walk-Back
Sean McVay announced two roster moves at his press conference: the Rams released kicker Mevis and signed kicker Blake. Then he spent part of the session un-saying something else.
McVay walked back his postgame comment about the kicking unit, clarifying that it cost the Rams an opportunity to win the game but was not the exclusive reason they lost. He narrowed a criticism he had already made out loud, and that revision is the more revealing half of the news.
The Buffalo box score backs up both halves of his answer. Josh Allen ran for 121 yards on 10 carries and threw for 210 more. James Cook ran for 111 yards and two touchdowns, and fumbled twice, losing one. Tyler Bass, at the other end, went 3-for-3 on field goals with a long of 49 and finished with 11 points.
Matthew Stafford was 40-of-54 for 383 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. The Rams moved the ball all night and still needed a kick to close it out. That's McVay's original point, and it's why the walk-back reads less like mercy than like room management. You soften a public criticism of a unit when the men still in that meeting room are going to hear it.
My read is that the release was the easy half. The Rams won Super Bowl LVI 23-20 over Cincinnati, a three-point game, and this is a franchise that has won championships in Cleveland, St. Louis and Los Angeles. A team built to win on Stafford throwing it 54 times doesn't get to treat the kicking job as an afterthought.
This helps Blake, who gets a job on a roster that will keep putting him in position to decide games. It hurts Mevis, who becomes the named cost of a loss in which Allen ran for 121 and Cook for 111 and two scores. Blaming a kicker for that is a choice McVay made and then partly retracted, and players notice which version sticks.
I expect Blake to handle the next kick that matters, and I expect the leash to be shorter than the one Mevis got. If Blake is still the kicker deep into the season, the Rams found their answer and the churn was a fix. If he isn't, Los Angeles will spend another week discussing a position that should never be the story.
The release was correct. Needing it after a 383-yard, three-touchdown night from your quarterback is the part this team should sit with.
