The Los Angeles Rams are officially headed to the postseason after successfully crawling back from a 1-4 start to the season. Much of the credit and attention for the Rams' playoff berth will rightfully be given to the Rams' offense and defense.
However, Rams head coach Sean McVay also gave credit elsewhere.
“I think [Special Teams Coordinator] Chase [Blackburn] and we've had a couple of different guys helping, but [Assistant Special Teams] Coach [Craig] Aukerman has been outstanding for the last couple of weeks. Michael Hoecht has been a guy that has made a big impact on the field goal block unit all year and he’s been really close. He had one earlier in the year, and then he got his second one yesterday. He had the one against New England and then ended up having one yesterday.
"He’s done an excellent job overall, and some people just have a knack for it. I think our punt unit has done a good job when we've decided to be able to come after it. A few weeks ago with [Jacob] Jake Hummel getting the big block that led to Hunter Long's touchdown. I've been really pleased with that group as a whole and that’s been a real positive for us.”
McVay shared his thoughts on the punting unit and how well they have done this season. Rams punter Ethan Evans has helped the Rams successfully win the field position battle when the Rams' offense struggles to get things going.
This has, in turn, helped the defense play better, as Evans usually helps put the unit in favorable positions.
“I think Ethan [Evans] has been excellent on the short field punts all year and has consistently been able to pin opponents deep," McVay said. "That was a great job by Xavier Smith on the one being able to field it. Ethan has really been able to be consistently accurate, does an excellent job of pinning opponents deep in territory and forcing them to go to length. If you look at last week, we got a couple down, one inside the one [yard line]. Yesterday, I believe there were three inside the 10, so an excellent job by Ethan and really the unit as a whole.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/rams/ as How Rams' Group of Unsung Heroes Helped Spark Run to Playoffs.