Rams Kicker Blake Grupe Injured Making a Tackle in His Debut, Listed Doubtful to Return Against Cardinals

INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA · SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2026

A kicker's job description is short, and tackling is not on it. Nobody told Blake Grupe — or, more accurately, Grupe was not given a choice. Making his Los Angeles Rams debut on Sunday at SoFi Stadium against the Arizona Cardinals, Grupe drilled a 44-yard field goal to give the Rams an early 3-0 lead, then jogged back out for the kickoff. Seconds later, Cardinals returner Devin Duvernay had broken through the coverage, the end zone was open behind him, and the last man standing between Duvernay and a touchdown was a 5-foot-7, 150-pound kicker playing his first game for his new team. Grupe forced him out of bounds and saved the touchdown. He also injured his knee making the play, was helped off the field, went to the locker room, and was listed by the Rams as doubtful to return, according to the New York Post and Cards Wire's live coverage for USA Today.

It is worth slowing down on the sequence, because it happened almost too fast to be cruel. The Rams' opening points came off a takeaway: safety Quentin Lake undercut a throw from Jacoby Brissett intended for Trey McBride and intercepted it — Brissett's sixth interception of the season, per Cards Wire's game log — giving Los Angeles the ball in Arizona territory. The drive stalled when Josh Sweat sacked Matthew Stafford on third down, and Grupe trotted out and converted from 44 yards with 9:41 left in the first quarter. First kick as a Ram: good. Then came the kickoff, Duvernay's 40-yard return through a coverage unit that had disintegrated, and Grupe lowering himself into the path of a returner with a full head of steam. The Post reported Grupe stayed down after forcing Duvernay out near midfield, was evaluated, and headed to the locker room with trainers. Arizona's drive ended in a Chad Ryland field goal rather than the touchdown Grupe prevented — the tackle, in cold football terms, was worth four points. It may have cost the Rams their kicker.

The second straight week the kicker had to be the last line of defense

Here is the part that elevates this from bad luck to something closer to a pattern, and the Post laid it out plainly: this was the second consecutive game in which the Rams' kickoff coverage broke down so completely that the kicker was forced to make a touchdown-saving tackle. Last Monday against Buffalo, it happened on the opening kickoff — only then it was Harrison Mevis, 6-foot-1 and 250-plus pounds, a man nicknamed the "Thiccer Kicker" for exactly the build that makes a kicker tackle survivable. Mevis made his play and stayed in the game. Then he missed kicks in that Buffalo loss, and the Rams cut him this week, replacing him with Grupe, signed off the New York Jets' practice squad. The job Grupe inherited, apparently, came with an unwritten duty: be the safety of last resort. The difference is 100 pounds of frame built to absorb the collision. Grupe's play was braver. It was also, physically, a much worse bet.

There is a genuine football argument buried in the absurdity. Kickers are taught to be a contain man, to force a returner toward help or the sideline, and Grupe did his job correctly and effectively — Duvernay went out of bounds, Arizona settled for three points, and the highlight will flatter Grupe's instincts forever. But a coverage unit that asks its placekicker to make an open-field stop on a 40-yard return, in consecutive weeks, with two different kickers, is telling on itself. The Rams' problem on Sunday was not that their new kicker got hurt making a tackle. It was that he had to make one at all, five minutes into a game, on a unit that was supposed to have fixed this seven days ago.

What losing a kicker mid-game actually does to a team

Cards Wire noted the obvious consequence in its live log: with Grupe doubtful, Los Angeles was left without a kicking game. That phrase understates the scramble. Every subsequent decision bends — fourth downs in field-goal range become go-for-it math, extra points become two-point conversion questions, and kickoffs themselves need a new leg. Punter Ethan Evans was the emergency option in the building, and Arizona Central's live updates tracked a Rams offense that had been held to three early points and 23 yards in the first quarter, which only raises the value of every kicking point Los Angeles could no longer count on. Teams carry one kicker for a reason — roster spots are precious — but Sunday was the rare, vivid demonstration of the risk that economy creates: one awkward landing on a kickoff return, and an entire phase of the game plan has to be rewritten on the sideline.

The human part

Strip away the systems talk and the story is smaller and sadder. Grupe spent the week as the new guy — signed Tuesday, learning a new snapper-holder operation, walking into a stadium as the answer to a kicking controversy not of his making. His first kick was perfect. His second play asked him to do the one thing kickers are famously not supposed to do, against a returner outweighing him and moving at full speed, and he did it without hesitating, and it worked, and he could not get up. Whatever comes next for the Rams' kicking situation — and this game was still being played as this story was published, with Grupe's status for the weeks ahead unknown — the debut itself is already complete as a piece of football folklore: one kick, one tackle, four points saved, one knee injured. You cannot make this stuff up, as the Post put it. You also cannot ask much more of a 150-pound debutant. For the rest of Sunday's NFL action, see Carolina's win in Philadelphia and follow every game at Previously's sports coverage.