Rams release kicker after unsurprising struggles, immediately sign replacement

The Rams have released Brett Maher and already signed his replacement

The Los Angeles Rams have released kicker Brett Maher, two days after he missed two field goals and an extra point in a 24-17 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Rams had no kickers on the roster at final cuts and now they have no kicker on the roster in Week 8. This is what L.A. gets during another season in which the team has shown no urgency towards finding a reliable kicker and now the carousel continues to spin.

Where will it land next? Per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Rams are going to sign Lucas Havrisik off of the Cleveland Browns practice squad.

Maher, who got a spotlight he didn’t want during the 2022 playoffs when he missed five PATs for the Dallas Cowboys, was 3-of-7 on field goal attempts for the Rams and 12-of-13 on extra points. The veteran has been on nine teams in the last six years.

The L.A. Rams went right back on the market and land on Lucas Havrisik.

Havrisik has never kicked in an NFL game before. The 24-year-old was on the Colts practice squad in 2022 and now the Browns practice squad until the reported signing by L.A. is official. Havrisik kicked at the University of Arizona and there’s not much else to say about him. He made some, he missed some, now he’s on the Rams.

Three seasons ago, under similar circumstances, the Rams had a kicking competition between three players and chose Sam Sloman. But Sloman was released midseason and replaced by Kai Forbath, who was released and replaced by Matt Gay. The Rams got a Pro Bowl season out of Gay in 2021, but decided not to bring him back as a free agent this past offseason, leading to the signing of two undrafted free agents. Neither of them made the roster and Sean McVay chose Maher and he’s not surprisingly out after seven games.