The Rams are back in emergency mode at kicker, which is hardly ideal this deep into the season. One injury, one Monday roster move and suddenly Tuesday becomes a pivotal audition for Matt Prater, with Brandon McManus also scheduled to work out for the Rams.
This is the messy reality of specialist football: when the kicking game goes wrong, it rarely goes wrong in a neat, planned way. Blake Grupe suffered a knee injury during Sunday’s loss to the Cardinals, and on Monday he was placed on injured reserve. That immediately forced the Rams to look again at the most fragile spot on the roster.
A second kick at the can
The timing matters because this is not the first time the Rams have had to reset at the position. Earlier in the season, Harrison Mevis was let go after Week 5, when he missed one field goal and had another one blocked. That kind of instability can quickly turn a routine roster spot into a weekly problem, and the Rams now find themselves there again.
Prater brings obvious appeal simply because he is Prater: a veteran kicker with a long track record and the kind of experience teams lean on when the pressure is rising. McManus is in the same conversation for the same reason. The Rams are not searching for glamour here. They are searching for reliability, and they need it immediately.
That is what makes Tuesday so significant. With Grupe unavailable, the Rams cannot afford to drift through another week hoping the problem solves itself. They need to know who can handle the job now, not later, and the workout will tell them whether Prater can step in and steady the position.
It is never dramatic in the way a quarterback move is dramatic, but it can swing everything just the same. If the Rams get this wrong, the consequences show up on the scoreboard fast. If they get it right, nobody will care who the kicker was supposed to be. That is the brutally simple standard for Tuesday’s workout.
