Rookie safety Kam Kinchens made the play of his young NFL career on Sunday afternoon when he picked off Geno Smith in the end zone and returned it 103 yards for a touchdown to give the Rams a 20-13 lead. Los Angeles went from potentially giving up the lead when the game was tied 13-13 in the fourth quarter to taking a seven-point lead thanks to the outstanding play from the rookie out of Miami.
If you watch the play all the way through, though, Kinchens almost made the ultimate mistake on his return. He nearly added himself to the embarrassing reel of players dropping the ball before crossing the goal line, which happened just last week with Jets receiver Malachi Corley.
On the NFL GSIS play-by-play, it officially went down as an interception return of 102 yards, followed by a fumble at the 1-yard line and recovered by Kinchens. However, NFL.com and ESPN have it as a 103-yard return.
He definitely did drop the ball, but it looks like he reached the end zone before doing so. Crisis averted.
That’s not going to stop Sean McVay from calling him out in a team meeting, however.
“I’m going to get him on the team meeting, though, because I don’t know if he finished,” McVay said after the game, smiling. “We always show these guys not finishing all the way through the end zone and if he’s added to the reel, he’s lucky that he had the presence to realize, ‘What the heck was I doing?’ and get back on it. I didn’t see the finish, but I had heard about it.”
McVay, of course, loved the way his young safety stepped up in the red zone with two big interceptions to keep points off the board for Seattle.
“Those were two huge plays that we had to have, or I’m not sitting here feeling the way that I do,” he said of Kinchens’ two interceptions.
