Tag: Brett Maher

Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule discusses hiring Brett Maher

The Nebraska Cornhuskers have added former Huskers kicker Brett Maher to their staff.

One of the major talking points about Nebraska’s loss to Illinois last Friday was the kicking game. Kicker John Hohl missed a potential 39-yard game-winner late in the fourth quarter. The miss, combined with starting kicker Tristan Alvano being banged up, has caused plenty of questions for head coach Matt Rhule.

During his Monday press conference, Rhule was asked about the kicking game and what the Huskers have been doing with the position group this season.

“We hired Brett Maher. He’s on staff. Brett’s coaching for us. Working with those guys,” Rhule said, the first time the second-year head coach acknowledged the addition of the former Husker kicker to the program’s coaching staff. “He’s here for the meetings and practices,” Rhule added.

When asked to expand on Maher’s role, Rhule told the media, “Brett’s just kind of consulted for (special teams coordinator) Ed (Foley) for a while. Brett, his life has shifted right before the first game. Ed would kind of use him as a sounding board, show him some video.”

“We have our specials camp, we had five or six NFL kickers and we’d use them as a sounding board. With the new rule, we went to Troy (Dannen) and all those guys and asked if we could add him to the staff. He’s been with us since training camp and going into the first game,” he added.

Maher, a Fremont, Nebraska native, played for the Cornhuskers from 2008 to 2012 before playing professionally in the NFL and CFL from 2013 through 2023, playing with 12 different teams during his career.

For the Huskers, Maher was 39-for-50, a 78% career field goal percentage. All of his kicks came in the 2011 and 2012 seasons. He also served as the program’s starting punter in both seasons, averaging 43.2 yards per punt over 120 career punts.

During his NFL career, Maher was 111-for-139 on kicks and holds the NFL record for most career 60+ yard field goals with four.

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Sean McVay: Brett Maher has ‘been great’ in 2nd chance with Rams

Brett Maher is back with the Rams after being cut earlier this year and Sean McVay likes what he’s seen so far

It’s been a revolving door at kicker for the Los Angeles Rams this year. They started with Tanner Brown in training camp, but he was cut before the regular season began and replaced by Brett Maher. Then, Maher was cut after seven games and Lucas Havrisik took his spot for the next nine games, only to be released before the season finale.

Maher is back as the Rams’ kicker with the playoffs approaching, getting a second shot in Los Angeles after missing six field goals and one extra point in his first stint. It’s only been a week, but Sean McVay has been encouraged by Maher’s performance in practice thus far.

“He’s been great. Shoot, it was really windy yesterday. Those are not ideal situations to be able to kick in and thought he was really smooth with the operation,” McVay said. “I thought he did a good job early on. When you go back and you look at it, I thought there were a lot of situations, if I’m being honest with myself, that you’re saying those are tough spots to put anybody in with the amount of attempts from 50-plus. And you look at just the landscape of the league, even from the guys that have been doing it as well as anybody all-time or over the course of their careers as of late, so I think you have to be mindful of that. He’s had some big-time game experience and so I was pleased with the way Brett came back in.”

McVay didn’t admit he cut Maher too quickly, but after seeing the drop-off to Havrisik, perhaps he realized the grass wasn’t greener. Maher did miss too many field goals, but four of his six misses were from beyond 50 yards. Havrisik, on the other hand, missed four of his six attempts from 40-49 yards.

The Rams need some consistency from the kicker position in the playoffs because what they got from Havrisik and even Maher was not good enough. No team since 2015 has missed more field goals than the Rams have this season, showing just how bad it’s been all year.

Rams sign K Brett Maher and WR Tyler Johnson to active roster

The Rams signed Brett Maher and also added Tyler Johnson to the active roster, which could suggest they’ll rest WRs on Sunday.

After making three roster moves on Tuesday afternoon, the Los Angeles Rams made two more later in the day. They officially signed kicker Brett Maher, a move Sean McVay said was coming on Monday when he spoke to reporters.

The Rams also signed Tyler Johnson to the 53-man roster, so he’s been promoted from the practice squad. That could be an indication that they plan to rest some of their wide receivers in Week 18, namely Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp, who have been banged up throughout the season.

Johnson has not been active for a game with the Rams but he has a chance to be on the game day roster Sunday when they face the 49ers, especially if Los Angeles plans to limit Nacua and Kupp’s snaps.

Rams’ abysmal special teams unit is one of the worst in NFL history

With yet another awful performance on special teams, the Rams’ unit now ranks as one of the worst in NFL history

It has not been a banner year for the Rams’ special teams unit. Los Angeles hired Chase Blackburn to replace Joe DeCamillis as the special teams coordinator but his first season with the Rams has been nothing short of a disaster.

From the kicking game to punt coverage to the return phase, everything has gone wrong on special teams for the Rams. It’s been so bad that the team has been forced to make a kicking change again ahead of the season finale after cutting Lucas Havrisik, who took over for Brett Maher.

The Rams have missed 11 field goals and 15 total kicks, both of which are the most in the NFL. Their 11 missed field goals are more than any team since 2015.

It’s bad bad.

Punter Ethan Evans ranks near the bottom of the NFL in net average (39.1 yards), in part because the coverage has been so bad. The Rams have allowed the second-most punt return yards (478) and they’re the only team to allow two touchdowns on punt returns. One was the Ravens’ walk-off in overtime and the other was a 94-yarder against the Giants on Sunday that nearly cost them a win.

Los Angeles is allowing 26.9 yards per kickoff return, which also ranks fourth-worst in the NFL. They haven’t allowed a touchdown on a kickoff return, but the tackling has been awful in that department.

All of this has resulted in one of the worst special teams performances in NFL history. According to Aaron Schatz, the Rams have the sixth-lowest special teams DVOA ever. It’s also three times worse than any other team this season, which is saying something.

Special teams has been costly for the Rams all season and it will need to improve with the playoffs approaching. They took a first step toward hopefully fixing the field goal operation by bringing back Maher on Monday after cutting Havrisik, but there’s no guarantee things will improve.

Sean McVay seems to be growing understandably frustrated with it all, too.

“It was tough,” he said of the Rams’ special teams Sunday. “There’s a lot of things that we have to be better at so I want to be careful to say too much until I’m really able to look at the totality of it all. I’m very engaged in the offense and defense, and some of the different things that didn’t occur today, we’ve got to do a better job there. That wasn’t good enough.”

Football is mostly about offense and defense, but special teams can lose you games.

Rams are bringing back Brett Maher after cutting Lucas Havrisik

The Rams cut Brett Maher after seven games, but they’re bringing him back after his replacement was even worse

The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. The Los Angeles Rams learned that this year at the kicker position, making change after change on special teams. They cut Brett Maher after seven games and replaced him with Lucas Havrisik, who struggled mightily and was cut on Monday.

To take Havrisik’s place, the Rams are bringing back Maher. Sean McVay announced the move on Monday, essentially telling reporters that there weren’t any better options available so they landed back on Maher.

In his first seven games with the Rams, Maher made 17 of 23 field goals and 12 of 13 PATs. However, it’s worth noting that four of his six kicks were from beyond 50 yards, and the other two were from 40-49 yards.

Havrisik was unreliable throughout his Rams tenure, missing five of his 20 field goal attempts and three of his 22 PATs. He missed two PATs on Sunday against the Giants and had missed at least one kick in three straight games.

The Rams are playoff-bound but their kicker situation is a major concern moving forward.

Sean McVay explains decision to cut Brett Maher, bring in Lucas Havrisik

Sean McVay admits he put Brett Maher in “some tough situations” as a kicker this season, particularly with the long-distance FGs

Just as they did in 2020, the Los Angeles Rams are once again cycling through kickers. They had rookies Christopher Dunn and Tanner Brown competing for the job during the offseason before settling on Brown. Then, they cut Brown before the season started and signed Brett Maher to the practice squad, giving him a shot to be their Matt Gay replacement.

That didn’t work out, either. On Tuesday, they cut Maher after he missed three kicks in Sunday’s loss and seven on the season: six field goals and one PAT. Four of Maher’s six misses were from beyond 50 yards, including 56- and 57-yarders, but the Rams weren’t satisfied with the job he did from week to week.

On Wednesday, Sean McVay explained the decision to cut Maher, admitting he put the kicker in some tough spots with those long attempts.

“Want to thank Brett Maher for his contributions,” McVay said. “I do think that it wouldn’t be accurate to honestly assess that he’s been a really good kicker for a long time, handled himself with pure class, did a good job. There were some tough situations that I put him in that doesn’t go lost on me. It’s not exclusively … anytime you just look at some of these things it’s gratitude, appreciation, recognition for the good things that he did. It wasn’t like easy spots that he was put in with some of these 50-yarders. Had as many field goals made going into Week 7 as anybody in the league with two other kickers. There were a lot of good things. It wasn’t a for-sure decision, but it was something that we felt like was the best decision. Whether or not it ends up being the right one, you try to weigh the factors and you try to be as accurate with those assessments as possible.”

To take Maher’s place as the Rams’ primary kicker moving forward, they signed Lucas Havrisik off the Browns’ practice squad. Though he hasn’t kicked in a regular-season game as a pro, the Rams like what he brings to the table.

“Well, I think, a lot of the potential, a lot of the talent in terms of when you talk about as a quarterback, the ball jumping off of a guy’s hand and being able to throw consistent spiral change in trajectories. This is the same thing that you talk about,” McVay said. “Consistent ball flight, immediate height, consistency with the approach, and a lot of the things that you liked when you go back to his career at Arizona. They had liked him in Cleveland. Matt Gay’s feedback was something that that weighed into it as well based on him being around him in Indianapolis.”

Havrisik obviously doesn’t have the experience that Maher or Gay do, but that doesn’t seem to bother McVay. He doesn’t sound fully committed to Havrisik as their long-term solution and they’ll see how he does, but this is the direction Los Angeles is headed right now.

“You got to start somewhere, right?” McVay said. “You look at all of these guys had to be able to get their experience somewhere and so I don’t think that can make you gun shy. I think you want to be realistic about some of those spots similar to what was asked earlier there. So I think we’ll evaluate how the week goes. We’ll see how Lucas does. Got a couple other guys that you potentially look at via practice squad spots and then we’ll make the best decision as it relates to how we approach Dallas.”

Sean McVay’s conservative calls are partly to blame for Rams’ kicking woes

Brett Maher missed 6 FGs with the Rams, but Sean McVay put him in tough spots with conservative decisions

The Los Angeles Rams made the decision to move on from kicker Brett Maher on Tuesday, cutting the veteran after only seven games. Maher leads the NFL in field goals made with 17, but he’s also missed six field goals and an extra point – including two field goals and a PAT in Sunday’s loss alone.

Sean McVay said after the game that Maher has “got to be better,” but the Rams aren’t giving him another chance to prove himself after going 17-for-23 in seven games. Instead, they’re bringing in Lucas Havrisik, a kicker with no regular-season experience and a 64% make rate in college at Arizona.

It’s hard to say the Rams gave up on Maher too early because he has been a bit up-and-down, but McVay is partly to blame for his underwhelming numbers. Of Maher’s six misses, four came from beyond 50 yards. A 53-yarder hit the upright, a 57-yarder was blocked by the Seahawks, a 56-yarder came as a last-second prayer before halftime and the 51-yarder was just badly missed left.

All teams have to settle for long field goals throughout the season, but McVay’s conservative decisions on third and fourth down have hurt the Rams and put Maher in difficult spots. It’s why the Rams have attempted a league-high 23 field goals this season.

According to Ben Baldwin, the Rams have lost the fourth-most win percentage points by kicking field goals in fourth-down situations where the analytics call for them to go for it.

In other words, the Rams are settling for field goals when they should be trying to convert on fourth down. And if you look at Maher’s 23 field goal attempts, eight of them have come on fourth-and-5 or less. Obviously, the Rams aren’t going to go for it in all of those situations, but McVay has been conservative to a fault on fourth down.

His third-down play calling before attempting long field goals can be questioned, too. On Sunday, he called a run play to Royce Freeman on third-and-5 from the Steelers’ 35-yard line. It gained 1 yard and the Rams settled for a 53-yarder, which Maher missed.

McVay all but admitted it was a bad decision when talking about Maher’s performance this week.

“There’s some long attempts. We got to make the extra point. It’s a good protection and it’s something that he’s done really consistently, but I do think you want to understand the fact that a lot of these misses are in the 50-plus range, which, that’s a challenging kick,” McVay said on the “Coach McVay Show” Monday. “I don’t care whether you’re Brett Maher or the Matt Gays of the world. You look at everything and it’s not just exclusive to that kick. That’s where you kick yourself for some of those situations that lead up to it. Well, what could we have done on the third-down-and-5 when we have the first 53-yarder? Just, ah man. It’s one of those deals that you go back to work, you apply the lessons you learn and you don’t let the Steelers disappointment beat you twice as you start to prepare for the Cowboys.”

Another questionable call came back in Week 1 against the Seahawks. The Rams were in a third-and-7 situation at the Seahawks’ 38-yard line, and Matthew Stafford threw a deep shot to Tutu Atwell, which fell incomplete.

Had McVay called a higher-percentage play that could’ve picked up 5, 6, or even 7 yards, the Rams wouldn’t have had to settle for a 57-yarder, which you simply can’t expect your kicker to make more often than not.

Against the Colts in Week 4, the Rams had second-and-11 from Indianapolis’ 35-yard line. They picked up 7 yards on a screen to Puka Nacua, who was tackled at the 28 with 20 seconds left. McVay waited to take his final timeout with 4 seconds left, opting not to take his timeout immediately and trying to pick up more yards to make the field goal easier.

Granted, it was only a 46-yarder, which Maher should’ve made, but McVay wasn’t exactly aggressive in that situation. He could’ve gotten in at least one more sideline shot, even with no timeouts remaining.

Maher deserves plenty of blame for his misses, especially the PAT on Sunday. He was part of the reason they lost to the Steelers. But McVay has also been too conservative on third and fourth down in some scenarios, leading to a lot of drives ending in field goals – make or miss.

McVay is someone who often says he looks inward first, and perhaps he needs to consider being more aggressive when the Rams are between the opponent’s 30- and 40-yard line. That’s where he often plays it too safe.

Brett Maher booted by Rams days before revenge game vs Cowboys

From @ToddBrock24f7: Maher was released after a 3-miss loss to Pittsburgh; the Rams are reportedly set to visit AT&T Stadium with a kicker making his NFL debut.

There will be no rematch pitting kicker Brett Maher against his former club this Sunday when the Rams visit AT&T Stadium to take on the Cowboys.

Maher was released by Los Angeles on Tuesday after a rough Week 7 performance that saw him miss two long field goals and an extra-point attempt in a seven-point loss to Pittsburgh.

NFL insider Adam Schefter is reporting that the Rams are planning to sign former Colts kicker Lucas Havrisik to replace Maher. If Havrisik plays Sunday, it will mark his pro debut.

Undrafted out of the University of Arizona in 2022, Havrisik competed for the starting kicking job in Indianapolis last September and was invited back to spend the summer in Colts training camp. He had spent the 2023 regular season thus far on Cleveland’s practice squad.

Maher was ultimately unable to move past the late-season struggles that also cost him his job in Dallas. The 33-year-old had at least one miss in six of his last ten outings, dating back to his infamous meltdown in Tampa. Kicking in the wild-card round of the postseason in January, Maher missed an NFL-record four extra-point tries, making the end of his second stint with the Cowboys a foregone conclusion.

Through seven weeks with the Rams this season, Maher missed six field goals and a PAT.

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Maher’s replacement in Dallas, Brandon Aubrey, has been a revelation. The former Notre Dame soccer star has been a perfect 16-of-16 on field goals with a long of 55 yards. He missed his first extra-point try in Week 1 but has connected on all 12 since. If he makes his next three three-pointers, he will set a new record for consecutive field goals to start an NFL career.

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Rams release K Brett Maher amid recent struggles

The Rams are making a change at kicker, releasing Brett Maher after he missed 3 kicks on Sunday

The Los Angeles Rams are officially making a change at kicker. After Brett Maher missed two field goals and an extra point in Sunday’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Rams released him on Tuesday.

They don’t currently have another kicker on the roster but Sean McVay said Monday that they might bring in candidates this week. With Maher gone, it’s clear they will now have to do that.

Maher has attempted and made the most field goals in the NFL, but he’s gone just 17-for-23 through seven games. He missed kicks from 51 and 53 yards against Pittsburgh, as well as an extra-point attempt. Those seven points were the difference in the game, a 24-17 loss at home.

Though four of his six misses have been from beyond 50 yards, he’s also missed twice between 40 and 49 yards, which is a critical range as an NFL kicker.

Rams not ruling out kicker change, could bring in candidates this week

Sean McVay said the Rams aren’t ruling out a change at kicker with Brett Maher struggling

The Los Angeles Rams could be making a change at kicker following Brett Maher’s three misses against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. Maher missed from 51 and 53 yards, and also yanked an extra-point attempt way left, leaving seven points on the board and helping set up the Steelers with great field position.

Sean McVay said after the game that the Rams would look at his performance and admitted Maher has “got to be better,” which no one would argue against. On Monday, McVay added that it’s possible the Rams will bring in kickers to further evaluate the position this week.

“There’s a possibility,” he said. “I talked to Chase (Blackburn) and Jeremy Springer earlier and I’ll talk to Les (Snead) after this. You want to evaluate the landscape, see what that looks like. Brett’s been pretty consistent throughout his career. He’s had some long attempts that are difficult kicks to be able to make that we’ve missed. You obviously want to be able to hit the extra point, but those will be things that we could possibly look into.”

Maher has attempted the most field goals of any kicker in the league this season (23), and he’s also made the most (17). But after going 1-for-3 on Sunday, and also missing a PAT, the Rams are considering a change.

No one expects a kicker to make all of his 50-plus yarders, but Maher has struggled as of late and six misses from any range in the first seven weeks isn’t a great trend.