{"id":103134,"date":"2025-12-20T23:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T23:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/103134\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T23:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T23:38:07","slug":"rams-fire-special-teams-coordinator-chase-blackburn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/103134\/","title":{"rendered":"Rams fire special teams coordinator Chase Blackburn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Rams<\/a> have lost four games this season, three resulting in part from special teams breakdowns.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of their defeat by the Seattle Seahawks, coach Sean McVay<\/a> made a significant move.<\/p>\n

Chase Blackburn<\/a>, the Rams\u2019 special teams coordinator for the last three seasons, has been fired, a team official said Saturday.<\/p>\n

Assistant Ben Kotwica remains on the staff.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Blackburn said, \u201cThe job of a special teams coach is to be able to adapt and overcome on all things.\u201d<\/p>\n

That proved a challenge for a team that features a high-powered offense, and an at-times dominating defense.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night in Seattle, the Rams led by 16 points in the fourth quarter when they allowed Rashid Shaheed to return a punt 58 yards for a touchdown. The play sparked the Seahawks\u2019 comeback that sent the Rams to a 38-37 overtime defeat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The loss dropped the Rams\u2019 record to 11-4, and knocked them out of the No. 1 seed in the NFC and first place in the NFC West.<\/p>\n

The breakdown was the latest in a series of special teams issues that have plagued the Rams.<\/p>\n

In September at Philadelphia, the Eagles blocked two field-goal attempts by Joshua Karty, returning the second for a winning touchdown on the final play of regulation.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, in a 26-23 overtime defeat by the San Francisco 49ers, Karty missed a long field-goal attempt and had an extra-point attempt blocked. Karty\u2019s kickoff in overtime did not reach the landing zone, giving the 49ers the ball at the 40-yard line.<\/p>\n

Before their Week 10 game against the 49ers, the Rams signed kicker Harrison Mevis to replace Karty and signed veteran snapper Jake McQuaide to replace Alex Ward.<\/p>\n

The kicking game solidified. Mevis made all eight of his field-goal attempts, including three against the Seahawks, before he missed a 48-yard attempt with just over two minutes left in regulation.<\/p>\n

The Rams, who clinched a playoff spot, play the Atlanta Falcons on Nov. 29 in Atlanta and then conclude the regular season at home against the Arizona Cardinals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rams have lost four games this season, three resulting in part from special teams breakdowns. In the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[11856,24433,27623,423,27621,48,52,51,47,50,49,3289,47800,3238,11706,10947,11599,278,55977,780,430],"class_list":["post-103134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-49er","tag-defeat","tag-field-goal-attempt","tag-game","tag-joshua-karty","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-loss","tag-nfc","tag-play","tag-ram","tag-rams","tag-seahawks","tag-season","tag-special-team-breakdown","tag-touchdown","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}