Sean McVay opened his Tuesday press conference by getting the kicker change out of the way. A day after the Los Angeles Rams’ 37-34 overtime loss to the Buffalo Bills, he confirmed the club had let Harrison Mevis go and signed Blake Grupe. “Appreciate his contributions. I thought he was a rock for us last year when we obviously struggled in that area,” McVay said. “But ultimately we need better production, and that’s what we’re hoping to get out of Blake.”
McVay also reworked part of his postgame message. Mevis missed from 50 yards in the first quarter and had the would-be winner from 48 blocked in overtime. “If I could rephrase what I was saying, it was, that unit cost us an opportunity to win the game. That wasn’t the reason that we didn’t win exclusively,” McVay said. “When you have a chance to be able to have that, if you make it, it wins the game. I should have articulated that better.”
No change at special teams coordinator
Asked for a state of the union on special teams, McVay went phase by phase. He said a player he trusts “very much so” did not make a play he is capable of on the first kickoff coverage unit, and the field-goal operation failed at the end, but he also saw “some good speed and violence on some of the coverage that we did have.” Then he backed his coordinator. “We need more consistent improvement. That starts with me doing a better job, us being able to create clarity. I have a lot of confidence in Bubba Ventrone,” McVay said. “There’s no changes that are going to be made there, and we’re going to keep working.”
On why Grupe, McVay pointed to experience. “He did a great job for Indy last year, has kicked in a lot of big-time professional settings, and we felt like he was the best guy available that had real game experience,” he said. The staff debated staging a competition like the one it ran when Mevis arrived to challenge Joshua Karty, but chose a cleaner handoff: “What we felt like was the best thing was to really just be able to give him an opportunity to come in here and do his thing and hopefully build on some real cool momentum that he had established in Indy.” McVay said he believed Grupe went 11 for 11 on field goals and 10 for 10 on extra points with the Colts.
McVay said the field-goal operation had been “trending in the right direction after all the work” before the protection gave way against Greg Rousseau on the overtime try. He borrowed a line from Wade Phillips for the fix: “If it’s important enough to you, you’ll get it done.”
The overtime decision
McVay also explained why he settled for the kick in overtime instead of pushing for a touchdown. “I had a thought of something on a third down, then we had a little bit of time to think about it, didn’t want to leave us susceptible to maybe getting a penalty that moves us back,” he said. “I trusted that our operation would be able to make that kick.” He pointed to the “indoor static environment” and kicks Mevis had made from that spot before. “In hindsight, you look back on it and you say, all right, shoot, because of what the outcome was, you’re kicking yourself,” McVay said. “But I think there was a clear line of thought that I had in that moment that led to those decisions.”
Alaric Jackson: “Have to make better decisions than that”
McVay said he was not told about left tackle Alaric Jackson’s two-game suspension for striking Bradley Chubb after the game until Tuesday morning. He spoke with Jackson and said “we’ll keep that in-house.” Pressed on whether the Rams have a tolerance line, he said each situation is “its own separate entity.” “I’m not condoning by any stretch of the imagination,” McVay said, “but it certainly doesn’t help us when we’re missing a player of his caliber, and he’s got to make more consistent decisions that are in alignment with being available and representing the things that we want to be about.” He confirmed Jackson would appeal and said he did not know what Chubb said before the punch. The league cut the ban to one game on appeal Wednesday night, so Jackson sits out Sunday’s game against Arizona and David Quessenberry starts at left tackle.
42 penalties and “baller mode”
A reporter pointed out the Rams have been flagged 42 times in five games. McVay said he would not make excuses and singled out the pre-snap mistakes. “We can’t have four false starts from four different players,” he said. “Talk is cheap. I’ve talked to you guys about it. We’ll keep emphasizing it.” He said his confidence in his veterans to clean it up is “high” and that he expects it to be “a blip,” adding: “Hopefully I’m not talking about this with you guys after our game this week.”
He had no complaints about Matthew Stafford. “I thought he tried to will us to a victory, and he was in kind of baller mode, if you will,” McVay said. “He played good enough for us to be able to win the football game.” He said the defense did too, crediting its toughness and the two takeaways, one of them a Nate Landman punch-out. He also joked about the headset: “My favorite part about the headset is that he can’t talk back to me.”
McVay finished with a story from John Fassel, his former special teams coordinator, after a 2019 Thursday night loss in Seattle: pause the tape before the kick that decides the game and ask what you would say about the team. “I’m proud of the way they competed toe to toe. It was a fight,” McVay said. “I didn’t want to be two and three, but I was proud of that football team last night, even though we came up short, and it was a valiant effort.” He said the Rams came out of the game “pretty healthy” and now host the Cardinals on Sunday with Grupe kicking.
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