The Rams have some uncertainty at kicker heading into Week 16 after Greg Zuerlein strained his quad against the Cowboys on Sunday. There’s a chance he’ll be able to play against the 49ers on Saturday night, but the one fewer day of rest he has doesn’t help his cause.
Los Angeles doesn’t have a set plan in place in case Zuerlein doesn’t play, but arrangements are being made. Sean McVay said at Tuesday’s press conference that the team will bring kickers in this week as possible replacements for Zuerlein in San Francisco.
“We’ll have some guys that have recently – we’ve got a couple names. ‘Bones’ (John Fassel) was on top of that right away when this situation came up,” McVay said. “If we do feel like it’s going to be something that we anticipate maybe he can go, maybe he can’t, we might end up keeping somebody that’s close by overnight, or we might end up having to sign somebody later on in the week if we make the determination that he isn’t able to go. That’s not what we expect, but we will have some guys coming in here Thursday night.”
McVay didn’t say who would be working out for the Rams, but he indicated that they’ll be looking at kickers who were recently with teams. He also left the door open for the possibility that they could go for two after every touchdown and get more aggressive on fourth down rather than settling for field goals.
“I think those guys that are street free agents that have most recently been with teams, I think they kind of know what the gig is that you never know when your number is going to be called. … Then we can always just go for two every time and we had a similar situation two years ago. And you can change up a lot of your tendencies on third down, too. So you never know,” he said with a smile.
It’s worth noting that Zuerlein is a free agent after this season, so bringing kickers in now to work out could give them an early look at a few options if Zuerlein doesn’t return in 2020. The Rams would probably like to bring him back next season, but he’s also had his share of struggles in 2019.
Zuerlein is only 4-for-9 (44%) from 40-49 yards after going 41-for-49 (83.7%) from that distance in his previous seven seasons combined.