Kicking field goals isn’t as simple as it may seem on the surface. Sean McVay often says there’s more that goes into it than just booting the ball between the uprights. It’s a whole operation, from the snap to the hold to the kick, as well as the protection up front.
The Rams’ kicking game has been significantly better this season than it was last year when the team led the league in misses, but they had their first hiccup on Sunday in Chicago. Rookie kicker Joshua Karty missed his first field goal attempt in the NFL, pulling a 43-yarder wide left in the second quarter.
The miss wasn’t entirely on Karty and there were some factors out of his control, something McVay mentioned after the game. On that kick, the laces weren’t at 12 o’clock like they typically are, which caused it to sail left – and the wind in Chicago didn’t help, either.
Karty gave a fascinating explanation of the miss on the “Rams Revealed” podcast with J.B. Long, sharing what goes into each kick, from the placement of the laces to his time to kick.
“A combination of a couple of factors, just with the snapper, the holder, myself. All three of us could have done a little bit better with that one,” he said. “I mean, there’s a lot going on. First off, you know, what’s taken for granted is the snapper has a tough job every single kick. They’re supposed to succeed every single time, just like the kicker is supposed to make every single field goal. And the holder’s supposed to have a good hold every single time, but the snapper is supposed to snap it so that the holder catches the ball with the laces already pointed at 12 o’clock, the direction that we’re kicking so laces out. And, you know, if anyone else just tries to snap a ball, it’s tough. You can’t control where the laces are, so that’s something that they all practice and get really consistent at. And so it’s hard to do 100 out of 100 times. And so the laces were a bit off on that one and the holder Ethan, he did his best to try to put the ball down.”
Karty, being the good teammate that he is, refused to pin the blame on Ethan Evans and Alex Ward for the bad snap and hold, also critiquing himself for being quick on his approach.
“It’s a little bit of our communication on all of us about what to do in situations like that, where you want the laces to be if they can’t be perfect, where you want them to be, to the side, towards you. And then it was also on myself,” he said. “I was a little bit fast on that one. I clocked in at about 1.2 seconds flat from the time to snap to kick, which is a little bit faster than I’d like to be. Normally, I’m at about like 1.28, so it just gives me a little bit less time to see the ball, so I kind of did that to myself a little bit. And then I didn’t hit the best (kick). But it was it was magnified by things that I could have done better. There’s a learning experience there for sure, for all of us. And, you know, Chicago’s a fun place to kick. There’s other variables. There’s wind, you gotta choose targets on every kick. Like you said, 4-for-5, so first miss of my career and now it’s just about bouncing back from it and moving on to the next game.”
Karty didn’t let that miss linger throughout the game because he made his next two attempts from 25 yards and 52 yards, bouncing back nicely from his first career miscue. He may only be a rookie, but he’s got the look of a potentially great kicker in Los Angeles.
