LOS ANGELES -- Something had to change.
The Los Angeles Rams had just notched a 35-21, wire-to-wire win over the Las Vegas Raiders. They had gotten back to building early leads, running the ball, making Matthew Stafford comfortable and feasting on the pass rush. But one mistake, repeated twice, kept eating at coach Sean McVay.
On two kickoffs in Sunday's first half, the Rams felt the familiar panic of a return man turning on the jets through a free lane to the sideline. The returns went for 42 and 39 yards and induced enough tremor in McVay that he began to ask Brandon McManus to boot the ball through the end zone each time.
This was the Rams' third kicker of the season already, one with 13 years of experience kicking off. They'd tried switching the personnel of the coverage team. They've been practicing it longer during the week. And yet, for a fifth straight week, the Rams gave up an explosive return on a kick for a punt.
"It's one of those deals that's driving me crazy," McVay said Monday. "We have to figure it out, and we haven't yet."
Adverse times can call for unconventional methods.
And so in came a familiar face.
The Rams signed Joshua Karty to the practice squad, bringing back the kicker they cut one year ago, almost to the day. It's their third kicker signing in three weeks.
But this time, it isn't about changing the field goals. This is about experimenting with a two-kicker approach -- McManus for field goals, and Karty for kickoffs.
Karty's release last season was in response to his missing five field goals and 3 extra points in eight games. Three of those kicks were blocked, creating that season's anxiety spell for McVay. In a search for answers, the Rams cut Karty and signed Harrison Mevis, who stabilized the field goal operation for a run to the NFC Championship Game.
Then this year arrived, and Mevis missed four field goals and saw his own release. That kick-started an ironic twist of events that ultimately landed Karty back on the team that drafted him.
"It was a lot of mixed emotions," Karty said of last season. "… I'm just healthier and a better kicker than this time last year. I have more experience under my belt now. I've had good times and learned some things from last year that were both in and not in my control."
As a sixth-round pick of the Rams in 2024, Karty came up in the new "dynamic" kickoff era, which features lines of opposing players starting in tight quarters and a landing zone for kicks that land in the field of play. To gain an edge, the former soccer player went back to his roots on a grass field in the spring of 2025, developing a knuckleball kick that would force players to field a ball off a bounce rather than grabbing cleanly with a running start.
"At first, I was pretty reluctant because I have a big kickoff leg, and it's something I've done for eight or nine years," Karty said last season. "Now it doesn't really matter if you have a strong kickoff leg anymore. Hang time doesn't matter. Distance doesn't really matter. … It's a lot more fun now than it ever was on kickoff."
In Week 3 last season, Karty's kickoffs were so bouncy and unconventional that they left Philadelphia Eagles players muffing and scrambling on nearly every one. One kick pinned Philadelphia toward its own end zone to set up a strip-sack from Jared Verse and a quick Rams score to build a 26-7 lead. Though the Rams wound up losing 33-26 -- after back-to-back blocked Karty field goals -- they finished the game by gaining more than 4 points over expected on kickoffs alone.
"The Philly fans started booing them," Rams cornerback and kickoff coverage man Josh Wallace said. "It's momentum, in a way. …
"It's like a dirty ball, so the ball hits the ground faster, which means the players can get off the ball faster compared to a regular kickoff, where you have to wait for the guy who catches the ball. Karty does a great job of getting the ball on the ground fast, and you don't know which way it's going to bounce."
Now, Karty practices with two different cleats: a football one for his right foot, and a soccer one for his left kicking leg.
"I'm just trying to pretend like it's a free kick in soccer and try to knuckle that thing over the wall," Karty said.
Last season, Karty led the NFL with an average starting field position on kickoffs of 25.5 yards. This season without him, the Rams have the league's second-worst kickoff unit in the same metric at 34.6 yards.
The difference between those marks is a first down, and in a game that features five kickoffs like last Sunday did, the difference can balloon to more than 50 yards. Those are the hidden yards eluding a Rams team that ranks second in the NFL in total yardage differential but has a losing record at 3-4.
A kickoff out of the end zone gives the ball to the opponent at the 35, which means it's just as mediocre an average result as the Rams' current performance level. He needed a more sustainable solution.
That's why he's reuniting with Karty. It would mean having two kickers active among the 48 active game day spots, but a numbers shift has also felt overdue. For as much as the Rams have tried to emphasize special teams this season in their words and practice structure, the roster hasn't reflected it much, with zero draft picks contributing meaningful snaps in that phase.
Now, they could have an extra spot on game days reserved for just a special-teamer.
Whether to activate the new approach now can't be fully answered until the Rams see their numbers Sunday.
"When you have 48 bodies (on game day) and the different guys that are filling in, you have to really ask yourself, 'OK, does that really make sense? Does it fit?'" McVay said. "There are a lot of layers to it."
Karty could also give the Rams a second kicker available if an injury occurs again, like it did to Blake Grupe on a first-quarter kickoff against the Arizona Cardinals, which contributed to an 18-16 upset loss. He could also provide an in-game alternative if McManus struggles, as he has at points in a 13-year career that has featured four teams.
Just 24 years old, Karty has dreams of becoming a kicker who handles kickoffs and scoring plays again. He spent his time between teams over the past year retooling his mechanics and getting healthy from a hip issue that lingered from training camp, which he said contributed to some of last year's misses.
But in the meantime, he has one job to do for the Rams, and it's become a critical one. At 3-4, and with four games decided on the final play, the margins matter too much not to explore the unconventional.
"I kind of stumbled into the knuckleball by accident," Karty said. "… I'm glad it's becoming marketable right now."
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
