The Los Angeles Rams hired two coaches to help fix the team’s issues on special teams which proved costly this past season, including in their NFC Championship Game loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
Head coach Sean McVay confirmed Monday that Bubba Ventrone will take over as Rams’ special teams coordinator, while Kyle Hoke will be an assistant coach on special teams.
Ventrone, 43, was a former NFL safety and special teams standout who spent the last three seasons as the Cleveland Browns’ assistant head coach and special teams coordinator. He has been an NFL coach since 2015.
“There is an energy, there is a toughness mentally and physically that he provides,” McVay said of Ventrone. “There is a style of play philosophically with how he believes in coaching, what his units have looked like, where he foundationally learned what he knows about this game.”
Hoke worked under Ventrone with the Browns last season after 13 seasons as a college assistant.
The Rams fired special teams coordinator Chase Blackburn in December and replaced him with assistant special teams coach Ben Kotwica. It was McVay’s first in-season coaching change in nine seasons with Los Angeles.
Kotwica will not return to the Rams’ staff.
Special teams issues against the Seahawks, in particular, cost the Rams a possible appearance in the Super Bowl. The Rams lost to the Seahawks in a key December game when Seattle returned a punt for a touchdown and Harrison Mevis missed a 48-yard field goal in a 38-37 overtime loss.
The defeat proved costly in the Rams’ quest for the NFC title and they were on the road for the NFC Championship game against the Seahawks. In that game, returner Xavier Smith muffed a punt in the third quarter, leading to a 17-yard Seahawks TD pass one play later in a 31-27 defeat.
Mevis was the second Rams kicker this past season after Joshua Karty struggled. Karty’s potential game-winning kick in a September game against the Philadelphia Eagles was blocked and returned for a touchdown on the final play of the game.
