Mevis, a 2024 undrafted free agent, spent training camp on the Jets’ roster. Scott Boehm / Associated Press

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — The Los Angeles Rams are making a second change to the field goal unit that has given them so many problems this season.

They are going to start Harrison Mevis at kicker on Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers. They’ve benched Joshua Karty after he’s missed a league-high eight kicks so far this season. He’s had five missed field goals and three missed extra points, with a handful of kicks blocked.

Mevis will start along with new long snapper Jake McQuaide, who will take over for Alex Ward. McQuaid played for the Rams from 2011 to 2020 and reached the Pro Bowl during the 2016 and 2017 seasons.

Los Angeles signed Mevis to the practice squad this week, then hosted a competition between him and Karty on Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday morning, coach Sean McVay was ready to name Mevis the starter.

“There are really three possible scenarios. We’ll sit down on Monday and we’ll say, ‘We’re going to continue to go with Mevis,’ and he will work and continue to get better on his own, we’ll go back to (Karty) or we’ll continuously have this competition,” McVay said. “What I can’t predict is the future, but I do think that this is going to be the best thing for this game.”

Karty will remain on the roster for now as the Rams monitor how Mevis handles his first NFL game. An undrafted rookie out of Missouri in 2024, Mevis spent last spring in the United Football League, where he made 20 of 21 field goals, including 13 of 14 from 40-plus yards.

Mevis specializes in long kicks, as he set a University of Missouri record with 12 field goals of 50 yards or longer. He also holds the SEC record with the longest field goal at 61 yards.

Just days ago, Mevis was kicking by himself on a field in Missouri when he got the call from the Rams. On Sunday, he’ll kick in his first NFL game in front of a road crowd in a pivotal NFC West matchup.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about it. It’s been every single week after getting cut from the Jets,” Mevis said. “I don’t know when my time is going to come, but I’m going to be ready. So I stayed ready. Every week, I was planning to play.”

The Rams are 6-2 and winners of three straight, but field goals have arguably kept them from being 8-0. They lost to the Philadelphia Eagles by allowing back-to-back blocked field goals in crunch time, and they lost in overtime to the 49ers after an extra point was blocked that could have won the game in the fourth quarter.

The issues have been wide-ranging, from poor protection to bad snaps to low-trajectory kicks to misses on field goals in short range.

“This is something that we’re continuously trying to be able to get our hands wrapped around,” McVay said. “We’ve talked about this probably more than anything that I’ve ever had to talk about since I’ve been the head coach of the Rams.”

Nov 7, 2025

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Nate Atkins is a Senior Writer for The Athletic covering the Los Angeles Rams. Prior to joining The Athletic, he covered the Indianapolis Colts for the Indianapolis Star, the Detroit Lions for MLive Media Group and the Chicago Bears for Pro Football Weekly. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he was recognized as one of the nation’s top-10 beat reporters by the Associated Press Sports Editors in 2023 and 2024, including a No. 1 overall finish in 2023. He grew up in Northeast Ohio, just 50 miles away from LeBron James.