Tag: Tanner Brown

6 Rams to watch in preseason Week 2 vs. Raiders

Here are 6 players to watch as the Rams take on the Raiders in the second week of the preseason.

The Los Angeles Rams will host the Las Vegas Raiders for their second preseason contest on Saturday. The Rams are coming off a 34-17 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in their preseason opener, but the team is focused on determining certain position battles rather than winning meaningless games.

With Week 1 only a few weeks away, time is ticking for players to show enough to earn a roster spot. Ahead of Saturday’s preseason meeting with the Raiders, here are six players from the Rams to pay attention to.

Rams’ Tanner Brown hadn’t missed a kick inside 50 yards all camp before Saturday

Prior to his 46-yard miss against the Chargers, Tanner Brown made every attempt inside 50 yards this summer

Rookie kicker Tanner Brown got his first taste of NFL football on Saturday night when he made his preseason debut with the Rams, but it didn’t go exactly as planned. While he made both of his extra point attempts and a 39-yard field goal, he missed a 46-yard try badly to the left.

It was his first NFL field goal attempt so we have to cut him some slack, especially after hearing what special teams coordinator Chase Blackburn said about the Rams’ kicker. On Monday, Blackburn told reporters that Brown’s 46-yarder was his first miss from inside 50 yards all training camp.

Brown was deadly accurate in college, making 22 of his 23 field goal attempts for Oklahoma State in 2022. He was a semifinalist for the Lou Groza Award, which is given to the best kicker in the country, showing just how impressive he was last year.

Brown has a few more weeks until the start of the regular season, so there’s time for him to fine-tune things.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

Rams are looking for accuracy over power from rookie kicker Tanner Brown

Rams ST coordinator Chase Blackburn will take “accuracy every time” over power from his kickers

A lot has been made about the losses the Rams suffered on offense and defense this offseason, with Jalen Ramsey, Bobby Wagner, Allen Robinson and Leonard Floyd being the headliners. But Los Angeles has made wholesale changes on special teams.

Matt Gay, Matt Orzech and Riley Dixon all left in free agency and have been replaced by three rookies. Tanner Brown, the Rams’ new kicker, was signed as an undrafted free agent and remains the only kicker on the roster as of now.

He’s obviously done enough to impress his coaches, leading to the Rams releasing fellow rookie Christopher Dunn after minicamp, but there’s still a long way to go, too. New special teams coordinator Chase Blackburn has been impressed by Brown, along with the Rams’ other two specialists.

“He didn’t miss a lot of kicks, I can tell you that,” Blackburn said. “He hit the ball clean, has a really strong leg. Like I said, mentally, that mental makeup and the mesh between the three of them is really good. I feel like we have a lot of confidence going in right now.”

In two years at Oklahoma State, Brown’s longest field goal was 52 yards. He didn’t make anything over 50 yards in 2021, but he was unbelievably accurate in his two seasons. He made 26 of his last 27 field goal attempts, including 22 of 23 last year alone.

Blackburn didn’t hesitate to pick whether he prefers accuracy or power from his kicker.

“Oh, accuracy. A hundred percent. A hundred percent,” he said flatly. “Put points on the board. We have a great offense, right? We have a great defense that we can trust if we pin them deep. If we can make them inside a 50 with a great accuracy, we’ll be good. Obviously, there’s situations where a longer field goal is going to come up, but we’re going to need it to end the half in the game. That’s going to be critical. But I’d take accuracy every time.”

Fortunately, the Rams have one of the most accurate kickers from the college ranks last year, which helped Brown earn recognition as a Lou Groza Award semifinalist, which is given to the best kicker in college.

Gay was always known for his powerful leg, but during his time with the Rams, he was also one of the most accurate kickers in football. The Rams hope Brown can just continue to drill kicks inside of 50 the way Gay did for several years.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

Rams getting compliments from coaches around NFL about their rookie specialists

Chase Blackburn says he’s gotten positive reviews from other special teams coaches about the Rams’ rookie specialists

The Los Angeles Rams aren’t taking a traditional approach to their special teams unit this year. They let Riley Dixon walk in free agency, lost Matt Gay to the Colts and didn’t re-sign Matthew Orzech, leaving them without a single specialist heading into the draft.

They only selected a punter, Ethan Evans, but they signed a long snapper and two kickers as undrafted rookies following the draft. They still have a kicker battle to sort out and the rookies, as inexperienced as they are, are just getting their feet wet, but new special teams coordinator Chase Blackburn is encouraged.

On Wednesday, he spoke about the Rams’ young special teams group, feeling good about the extensive work he and the team’s other coaches put in to find the best possible specialists in the 2023 class.

“For me, I think it is a rare situation,” he said of having an all-rookie specialist group. “Obviously, I don’t think it happens a ton, but I also think that what was encouraging to me was, (Jeremy) Springer and myself went out all on the road throughout. I don’t know how many we had – 44, something like that – pro days and private workouts and different things. We were able to get our hands on guys specifically and talk to them and make sure we match the right guys together because a lot of this specialist world, you have a lot of downtime. It’s about matching the personalities and the mindsets and knowing guys that’ll work and I think we did find that so I think that was encouraging.”

What also has Blackburn feeling good about the Rams’ group is the number of compliments he’s gotten from special teams coordinators and players around the NFL.

“And then the second part of that was how many special teams coordinators and former special teams coordinators or guys around that and specialists that I’ve worked with are like, ‘Man, you got the right guys. You brought the right guys in.’ And so that was encouraging to me that our work paid off and now we’re just going to keep bringing them along,” Blackburn said. “We’re still rookies. We still have a long way to go, still in the offseason, but we’re making the right strides.”

The two kickers the Rams signed, Christopher Dunn and Tanner Brown, were two of the best in the country last season. Dunn won the Lou Groza Award in 2022, which is given to the best kicker in college football, after making 28 of his 29 field goal attempts. He also went a perfect 200-for-200 on PATs in his college career.

Brown ranked third in the FBS with a field goal conversion rate of 95.7% last season and was a semifinalist for the Lou Groza Award, joining Dunn as the only other kicker in the country to attempt at least 20 field goals and only miss one in 2022.

Blackburn has been encouraged by both kickers so far in OTAs, even with it being as early as it is.

“Both have been very good,” he said. “On the side work this week, yesterday and today were the first days of team. Both of them obviously missed one kick they want back. But outside of that, they’re hitting the ball really well. Showing good leg strength, good rise, good ball flight. More importantly, this place gets windy, right? You think of LA and you think of this area, I wouldn’t have necessarily thought that the practice fields and things would be windy. And so to be able to hit a true ball flight and power powerful kicks through that and make them right down the pipes is really, really encouraging for everybody.”

Alex Ward, the long snapper out of UCF, was a two-time finalist for the Patrick Mannelly Award, which is given to the best long snapper in college each year. So he’s another specialist with a strong track record like Dunn and Brown.

There will undoubtedly be a learning curve for the Rams’ young specialists, but the early reviews are positive – and it’s especially good to hear other coaches from around the league saying L.A. got the right guys.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

Fiesta Bowl: Fourth-Quarter Analysis

That’s all, folks.

It’s natural that there will be some growing pains as Marcus Freeman settles into his new role as Notre Dame head coach. Some of them will happen on the field, and some will happen off of it. The Fiesta Bowl was one of those on-field occurrences as the Irish gave up 30 unanswered points while falling, 37-35, to Oklahoma State. The Irish’s major bowl drought will live for another year after they blew the biggest lead in program history.

The fourth quarter began with one of the craziest sequences you’ll see in football. With the Irish (11-2) driving, Logan Diggs literally had the ball ripped from him by Kolby Harvell-Peel, giving the Cowboys (12-2) good field position. The ensuing drive went well for the Pokes until the last possible moment. Brennan Presley was about to score a touchdown on a run when Drew White forced a fumble, which was recovered by Ramon Henderson in the end zone for a touchback.

Jack Coan, who set a Fiesta Bowl record with 509 passing yards, nearly gave the Irish lead back on a long throw to Lorenzo Styles, but Styles couldn’t complete the catch. That was as good as it got for the offense on that drive, and Jay Bramblett had to come out for another punt. The Cowboys reached the red zone on the drive that followed, but a face-mask penalty knocked them out of there. The Irish were able to prevent the Pokes from getting back there, but Tanner Brown kicked a 41-yard field goal to get something out of the trip downfield.

The Irish’s offense went with an all-pass attack on the next drive, and that worked for a while as it got the ball to the Cowboys’ 24-yard line. However, the next two plays were disastrous for Coan. First, he was sacked by Brock Martin for the second time in the game. Then, he threw an interception to Malcolm Rodriguez, snuffing out the Irish’s best chance to score the entire second half.

The drive that followed was all about eating the clock and getting any number of points to erase any doubt about the game’s outcome. As he had since late in the first half, Spencer Sanders did a fantastic job managing his offense, completing long passes and even calling his own number when needed to. It was that last item that erased all of that progress because he fumbled the ball at the Irish’s 11, and White recovered it.

Blessed with a break, it was up to the Irish to make something happen. What happened was nothing because after a 4-yard completion to Chris Tyree to advance the ball to the 15, Coan threw three straight incomplete passes. The Cowboys took over in the red zone but didn’t do anything fancy. They just ran the ball and forced the Irish to use all of their timeouts, paving the way for a 25-yard field goal from Brown.

With 2:16 left, the Irish absolutely needed a score to still have a chance at the win. Coan completed a couple of first-down passes, and Diggs even gave the pass-heavy offense a bonus with a 14-yard run. The Irish got further help from a defensive holding call, and Coan capped the drive with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Kevin Austin. Only 71 seconds had gone off the clock, so this game hadn’t quite been decided yet.

The Irish needed to recover an onside kick, but Jason Taylor got his hands on it before the ball even traveled the necessary 10 yards. All the Cowboys had to do was kneel a couple of times, and they did just that before celebrating the biggest comeback in program history. That definitely is not something the Irish wanted to be on the receiving end of, but that’s how it goes in football. Onto 2022.

Fiesta Bowl: Third-Quarter Analysis

This is not fun anymore.

A Fiesta Bowl victory that once seemed almost certain for Notre Dame suddenly is in doubt. Oklahoma State came out for the second half looking like the team that was better prepared. The result is a 21-point Irish lead that has given way to a 31-28 Cowboys advantage at the end of the third quarter.

Spencer Sanders walked onto the field like he was completely in tune with his receivers. He completed one pass after another while facing little resistance from the Irish’s defense. For the second drive in a row, he hit Tay Martin for a touchdown, this one from 5 yards out. The Irish from most of the first half were nowhere to be found on this possession.

Both teams then went three-and-out. The Irish did a little better on the drive that followed that sequence, advancing from their own 15-yard line to midfield. However, it ended with a Jay Bramblett punt, which has happened all too often in this game. While he pinned the Cowboys at the 11, it didn’t matter because Sanders masterfully orchestrated another long drive that ended with the game-tying 8-yard touchdown pass to Martin, his third of the game.

Things went from bad to worse as the Irish’s offense once again could not get anything going against a vaunted Cowboys defense that had rediscovered itself. Xavier Watts was whistled for a kick-catch interference on the ensuing punt to give the Cowboys a short field. Martin then drew a pass interference against Clarence Lewis, bringing the Pokes even closer to the end zone. Somehow, the Irish’s defense stepped up to turn what looked like another touchdown drive into a go-ahead 38-yard field goal from Tanner Brown.

Unbelievable.