The Rams signed kicker Brandon McManus on Tuesday, but the move landed as more than a simple special-teams fix. It came in the same transaction wave that sent nose tackle Poona Ford to injured reserve and left Davante Adams sidelined for 6-10 weeks, another reminder that Los Angeles is trying to patch together a roster that keeps losing pieces.
That is the backdrop for a team that is already 2-4 and coming off an 18-16 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. The Rams’ playoff hopes have fallen from 90.1% to 26.0% since the start of the season, and their Super Bowl odds have dropped from 16.3% to 1.5%.
The kicker change is easy to isolate on paper. Blake Grupe was placed on injured reserve after tearing his ACL in the loss to Arizona, forcing the Rams to bring in McManus. But the transaction does not stand alone. It arrives alongside two more roster hits that leave the Rams trying to stabilize multiple spots at once.
Ford’s injury is season-ending after a ruptured triceps, and Adams is expected to miss 6-10 weeks with a ruptured semitendinosus. Those absences add to a season in which the Rams have yet to play a game with all of their stars on the field, with Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald never sharing the field together.
Garrett played 40 defensive snaps in the season opener before undergoing knee surgery that landed him on injured reserve. That has left the Rams without one of the players they expected to anchor the defense, while the rest of the roster has continued to churn around him.
Special teams has also been a problem. The Rams enter this stretch with the worst field goal percentage in the NFL at 60%, so McManus is stepping into a job that has already been a weak point, not a clean slate.
The larger question around the Rams is no longer just whether one replacement can steady one phase of the game. Tuesday’s moves show a team dealing with availability issues across the roster, from kicker to defensive front to receiver, while trying to keep a disappointing season from slipping further away.