LOS ANGELES – The Rams' special teams has undergone a few changes this offseason, from hiring new coordinator Bubba Ventrone and assistant Kyle Hoke to adding key personnel like veteran long snapper Joe Cardona and inside linebacker Grant Stuard.
The adjustments, though, haven't been exclusive to new leadership and new players.
Evaluating his own performance last season, fourth-year punter Ethan Evans wasn't satisfied with the hang time he was getting on his kicks, prompting him to make the mechanical tweaks Ventrone brought up in his press conference at the beginning of Rams Training Camp.
"The biggest thing was just my steps," Evans explained to therams.com. "I was getting super long with my steps, and that was affecting the get-off time consistency, and I wasn't hitting as much hang time as I was wanting to. A lot of that was because we were doing a lot of end-over-end punts and not spiraling the ball as much."
Thus, Evans proceeded to spend the offseason working on making himself a "two-step" punter, he said, which helped him get his hang time up.
"So that way, like if for whatever reason I do mis-hit a punt, it's still a very like manageable punt that we can cover, and it's still pretty high, so we can cover, not get as many return yards," Evans said.
When Ventrone spoke to the media after the Rams' first training camp practice on July 26, even after one practice, he mentioned that he was pleased with how Evans' offseason work carried over.
"Ethan has had a really good offseason," Ventrone said. "He's had a really good offseason. He's tweaked a few things with his mechanics. I think that his ability to put the ball in the air can be a weapon for us. I think he's definitely improved in a lot of those areas. I think that he is going to continue to be more consistent on a day-to-day basis. I think that has definitely helped him be able to develop over the spring, and then obviously into training camp and the opportunities he's going to have there, so I think it'll be good for him."
Asked if he came up with those tweaks on his own or if that came up in conversations with Ventrone, Evans made it clear "it was all my decision" while working with his kicking coach Anthony Giugliano back home in North Carolina.
"Just going back and watching the film during the offseason with my kicking coach back home, we just decided, 'Hey man, you're too big and strong to be taking this many steps and they're like this long, so just stay short and just get up and through the ball.' So yeah, that's what we worked on doing, and it's worked out pretty well," Evans said.
Evans said he's been "pretty pleased" with how he's done so far in camp in wake of those changes to his steps. While it hasn't been perfect, he's seen enough to feel good about the decision to make those adjustments.
"I mean that one punt where I absolutely duffed the ground like a golf club, that was pretty funny," Evans said with a smile. "But no, other than that, I've been pretty pleased. It's pretty windy out here, so it's affecting it a little bit, (I'm) not hitting the (5.5 seconds-plus), the big hang time balls. But no, still hitting pretty good punts, and I think it's encouraging to the other guys that hey, we're gonna go out there and we're gonna flip the field for the team and put our defense in the best positions that we can, just help out all the guys out as much as we can."
