Rams' special teams tweaks give fans reason to hope they can forget past woes

Football is described as a game of inches. Well, the Los Angeles Rams were miles behind in special teams play last season. Whatever could go wrong seemingly did. Poor special teams performance shot the Horns in the foot week after week.

The Rams began tweaking the unit midway through the 2025 season. Those changes continued into the 2026 offseason. In addition to boosting the player personnel, the Rams hired a new special teams coaching duo, Bubba Ventrone and his assistant Kyle Hoke. The question is whether those adjustments are enough, or whether L.A. has merely applied a band-aid to a compound fracture.

Multiple losses last year can be traced back to special teams miscues: missed kicks, botched blocking, terrible tackling, and awful penalties. Fans saw it all. The new crew is under significant pressure to produce immediate results.

Rams' minor improvements should fork over major results

The good news is that they should have every opportunity to flip the script.

1. Retaining kicker Harrison Mevis

In the first eight games, Rams kicker Joshua Karty missed one-third of his field-goal attempts. His replacement, Harrison Mevis, made 92.3 percent. That's quite an improvement and resulted in an easy decision to bring back Mevis in 2026.

While kickers can go ice cold at any moment, Mevis does bring a solid track record from the UFL. Seeing as the Rams made no move to stage a competition at kicker, they appear confident trotting out Mevis as the guy.

2. Adding long snapper Joe Cardona

Blocking duties fall to the long snapper, an important communicator with his teammates on the special teams offensive line. That is significant given the Rams' woes with blocked kicks last season. Midway through the year they replaced Alex Ward with former Rams veteran Jake McQuaide. McQuaide seemed to hard-halt blocked kicks upon his arrival.

But in the offseason, L.A. made a more permanent move by signing veteran long snapper Joe Cardona. That's a win for Ventrone and his crew.

3. Improved kick coverage

A healthy Shaun Dolac coupled with Cardona and ex-Lions linebacker Grant Stuard, an underrated free-agent addition, Rams special teams should see a dramatic upgrade in tackling.

Punt and kickoff coverage has been the bane of this group for several years. Hopefully L.A. has figured out how to fix the problem.

4. Fewer penalties

Frequent poorly timed penalties were among the Rams' most frustrating special teams struggles. Big returns were called back due to holding penalties far from the play. Often, penalties resulted from other underlying flaws, like deficient blocking. The infusion of veterans and a new special teams coach should help fix that.

The Rams' 2025 special teams performance was a train wreck. Fans can point to several losses, including in the NFC Championship Game, as a result. The above improvements needn't catapult the Horns from worst to first. Simply fixing egregious errors should be enough to turn the corner.

As always, thanks for reading.

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