Rams Sign Third Kicker Brandon McManus and Place Davante Adams and Poona Ford on Injured Reserve in a Brutal Tuesday

LOS ANGELES

Tuesdays in the NFL are for roster housekeeping. For the Los Angeles Rams, this Tuesday was closer to triage. The Rams signed veteran kicker Brandon McManus — their third kicker of the 2026 season — and placed wide receiver Davante Adams and nose tackle Poona Ford on injured reserve, a single afternoon of transactions that summed up where a 2-4 season has gone wrong: a kicking carousel that will not stop spinning, and two starters lost from the same damaging Sunday.

All three moves trace back to Sunday's 18-16 loss to the Arizona Cardinals at SoFi Stadium, a two-point defeat that has now cost Los Angeles far more than a game in the standings. It cost them a kicker in the middle of his debut, their top receiver for most of the remaining schedule, and a starting defensive tackle for the rest of the year. For a team that has already lost four of its first six, the margin for absorbing that kind of afternoon is thin, and Tuesday's paperwork made the damage official.

A third kicker in six weeks

Start with the strangest position on the roster. The Rams opened the season with Harrison Mevis, who made just 5 of 9 field-goal attempts and was released after the Week 5 overtime loss to Buffalo. His replacement, Blake Grupe, arrived with a chance to stabilize the job — and for a few minutes on Sunday, he did. Grupe made a 44-yard field goal in his Rams debut against Arizona. Then, on the ensuing kickoff return, Grupe made a tackle, tore his ACL, and was done — placed on injured reserve after one game, one made kick, and one tackle that ended his season.

That sent Los Angeles back into the veteran market on a short week. McManus worked out for the team on Tuesday alongside fellow veteran Matt Prater, according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport via ClutchPoints, and the Rams chose McManus. It is not hard to see why a 2-4 team would reach for the most experienced leg available. McManus is 35 years old, has played 12 NFL seasons, and won Super Bowl 50 with the Denver Broncos. His career line — 297 made field goals on 362 attempts, an 82 percent conversion rate, and 374 of 384 extra points — is the profile of a kicker who has held jobs for a decade because coaches trust him in the exact situations that have been breaking the Rams' season: one-score games, late kicks, no room for a miss.

McManus most recently kicked for the Green Bay Packers after his long run in Denver, and he now walks into a job that has consumed two kickers in six weeks. The Rams do not need him to be spectacular. They need the position to stop being a weekly story — no small thing for a team that just lost by two points with its kicker injured covering his own kick.

The recent form supports the choice. In Green Bay, McManus made 44 of 51 field-goal attempts — 86.3 percent — and 62 of 63 extra points across 25 games in the 2024 and 2025 seasons, according to the Rams' announcement, and his 2024 season was the most accurate of his career: 20 of 21 field goals, a 95 percent rate, including 3-for-3 from 50 yards and beyond, with every extra point converted. For a team that has watched the position cost it games in consecutive weeks, that track record — recent, not just historical — is the argument.

Adams and Ford to injured reserve

The bigger losses came on the other two lines of Tuesday's transaction report. The Rams placed Adams and Ford on injured reserve, with both injuries sustained in Sunday's loss to the Cardinals, according to the team's announcement. Adams ruptured his hamstring — the Rams identified the injury as a ruptured semitendinosus — and is slated to miss 6 to 10 weeks, according to the Rams and NBC Sports. Ford ruptured his triceps, and his injury is season-ending, the team said.

Adams is the offense's headline loss. He is the Rams' top receiver, the player defenses have to account for on every snap, and his absence for at least six weeks reshapes what Los Angeles can do in the passing game for the heart of the schedule. NBC Sports noted that Adams had 30 catches for 480 yards and four touchdowns, production that now has to be absorbed by the rest of the receiving room across from Puka Nacua. Ford's loss is quieter but just as structural: a starting nose tackle who had appeared in all six games, per NBC Sports, anchors the middle of the run defense, and a season-ending triceps injury removes him from that picture entirely.

What 2-4 looks like now

Put the day together and the picture is stark. In one Tuesday, the Rams changed kickers for the third time, lost their top receiver for six to ten weeks, and lost a starting defensive tackle for the season — fallout from a single two-point home loss to a division opponent. Teams at 2-4 talk about getting healthy and stacking wins. The Rams, at least for now, are doing the opposite: the injured-reserve list is growing faster than the win column.

None of that makes McManus a minor signing. If anything, the state of the roster raises the value of every point he can reliably add. Los Angeles has been living in one-score games, and the difference between 2-4 and something more workable has repeatedly come down to a kick made or missed — or, on Sunday, a kicker lost entirely. The Rams' next stretch will test a thinner offense, a reshuffled defensive front, and a 35-year-old kicker on his first week with the team. Tuesday told the story of the season so far; the coming Sundays will decide whether it is also the story of how it ends. Follow the club on the Rams team page, the matchup picture on the NFL hub, and the rest of the evening's news on the Previously sports front.