The Rams’ return game hasn’t gotten any better since Xavier Smith was cut, and that’s the clearest sign yet that he was never the real problem.
Los Angeles still hasn’t produced a kickoff return longer than Jordan Whittington’s 34 yards, and Alex Bachman’s punt-return work has been just as thin. He’s averaging 5.2 yards per punt return, with a long of 15.
That’s not a rescue job. It’s more of the same.
Bachman isn’t really the villain here. He’s a little-used journeyman who was on the practice squad for a reason, and he’s not going to manufacture blocking lanes that aren’t there. He’s been less prone to mistakes than Smith, but he’s also brought less juice.
That’s the bigger story: the Rams have tried to patch up special teams with personnel changes, and the return game is still stuck in neutral. Smith’s exit hasn’t looked good or bad so much as irrelevant. The production has stayed blah.
Five weeks into the Bachman run, Smith still owns the Rams’ longest punt return of the season at 19 yards. He wasn’t a game-breaker, but he was usable when he wasn’t muffing balls off his facemask or fielding would-be touchbacks at the goal line.
Yeah, that’s not going to work.
Even so, Smith’s numbers were better than they’ve been since the change. Over his three Rams seasons, he averaged 9.4 yards on punt returns.
Bachman’s career mark is 5.8. On punts and kickoffs alike, he’s looked a lot like another version of Whittington: straight ahead, into traffic, and done.
The numbers back up how stuck this unit has been:
Punts: 7.3 yards per return, tied 26th; 116 total yards, 17th; 16 attempts, tied 1st; long of 19, 26th
Kickoffs: 23.5 yards per return, 29th; 752 total yards; 21st; 32 attempts, tied 12th; long of 34, tied 30th
Bachman has been a little safer than Smith, but there’s no upside showing up with him back there. On kickoffs, he’s averaging 22.9 yards on 13 tries, and Whittington’s 34-yard runback remains the best the Rams have managed all season.
The other problem is that the coverage unit keeps giving away explosive plays. The Rams hand out big returns far too easily, while their own return game struggles to create anything in response.
So while the switch from Smith to Bachman may have made sense on paper, it hasn’t changed the outcome. Cutting Smith didn’t fix the issue, and Bachman hasn’t either. The deeper problem looks a lot bigger than either return man.
This group needs a house-cleaning from top to bottom.
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