INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Los Angeles Rams tight end Hunter Long only remembers hearing two “thuds.”
The first was the football hitting Buffalo Bills punter Sam Martin’s foot as Martin punted from the Buffalo 48-yard line with 12:38 left in the second quarter. The second was the ball hitting the inner arm of inside linebacker Jake Hummel as Hummel stretched unblocked toward Martin.
“I like, blacked out,” Long said in the locker room after the Rams’ 44-42 win over the Bills on Sunday night. Long batted the loose ball forward after Hummel’s block and then scooped it up and ran it back for a touchdown.
It was also Long’s first in the NFL. He’s proud it came on special teams — where he has toiled with fellow less-heralded players as he works to build positive career momentum after multiple seasons ended because of injuries. Long was the “other” player in the Rams’ trade of star cornerback Jalen Ramsey to the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins drafted him in the third round in 2021
“It’s been one hell of a ride,” Long said. “I came into this year just trying to focus on, worry about, what I can control. Try to go out there and take every chance I get and make the most of it. Anything they ask me to do, I’m going to go out there and lay it on the line for the team.”
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As he rumbled into the end zone, Long tucked the ball into his arm and flexed as he screamed — part celebration, part catharsis.
“It was a lot of built-up emotion,” he said. “Just (came out) in a raw way. I couldn’t tell you what I was doing. It was a culmination of a lot of years of grinding through ups and downs, and it was a really special moment. It was sweet.”
PUNT BLOCKED! TO THE HOUSE FOR SIX!
📺: @NFLonFox | #RamsHouse pic.twitter.com/862Na3qyim
— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) December 8, 2024
The play built the Rams’ first-half lead to 17-7, but it was also one of a few key plays or decisions made by the Rams in the margins of what became a very close game.
Hummel said special teams coordinator Chase Blackburn pointed out the Bills’ blocking structure in meetings this week. In one of the protections they run, Blackburn said there was an opportunity for Hummel to rush at the long snapper and then two “loopers” would try to penetrate the punt protection behind him.
“It puts the personal protector in a conflict,” Hummel said. “They either have to block me, or one of the loopers. I just happened to be the guy who (came) free. And you’ve got to make the play when you get the chance!”
The Rams scored points on every possession (minus the end-of-half clock-killing series) until the fourth quarter, when they punted for the first time with 13 minutes left in the game. Second-year punter Ethan Evans opted for a low-hanging sinker that dropped at the 9-yard line and bounced out of bounds.
After the Josh Allen-led Bills mounted a furious comeback effort across the second half, the Rams, up just 3 points, faced a fourth-and-5 at the Buffalo 35-yard line with just 3:53 to play.
According to situational analytics calculator nfl4th (a product of analyst Ben Baldwin), the situation was a “toss-up” decision with the difference +0.5 percent in win probability if the result of the chosen play was successful. ESPN’s analytics calculator was slightly more definitive; that recommendation was to “go for it” with the difference in win probability +2.2 percent. The Bills were scoring quickly on the other side, and to kick a field goal in that situation would give the ball back to Allen well before the two-minute stoppage, with the Rams up only 6 points (assuming kicker Josh Karty made the field goal attempt; Karty has been inconsistent over the last few weeks and later missed an extra point attempt).
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McVay, who hired assistant coach John Streicher this season as an on-field/in-booth situational coach among his other roles, said his level of trust in Karty had nothing to do with his decision.
“I think the offense had done a good job of being able to convert and we felt like we needed to make it a two-possession game. They were rolling. We talked about aggressively going to win that game,” he said.
After a series of questionable calls and timeout management by Buffalo’s coaching staff, the Bills were down by just 2 points with about a minute left and needed to execute an onside kick (which now must be declared if in the fourth quarter, in cooperation with the new kickoff rule).
Reserve running back Ronnie Rivers recovered it. Previously this season, Rivers converted a fake punt.
“Ronnie’s a good special-teamer as well,” Hummel said, smiling proudly. “He goes kind of unnoticed, too, on our team. He does a really good job as a personal protector and making clutch plays like that, (which) you saw today.”
The Rams were stopped on their corresponding possession but took a delay of game penalty to kill time.
The clock appeared to stop at six seconds in the stadium and on the Fox broadcast, but officials ultimately added another second. Quarterback Matthew Stafford was on the field on the other side of the delay penalty, because with six seconds left, McVay said Monday, that “usually is the maximum threshold to be able to just roll out towards your sideline and airmail a ball vertically and let the clock expire before that thing hits anything.” Some situational experts refer to this as a “foul ball” play.
But with seven seconds, a punt was the better call. When the Rams’ staff saw the clock had changed, even with Stafford and the offense on the field, they called a timeout. Evans and the punting unit took the field. The Rams expected a punt rush and block attempt from Buffalo, but then Evans saw the Bills didn’t have enough players on the field (only nine). Evans was able to take his full windup into his punt, which killed the rest of the clock.
“I don’t think they knew exactly what we were going to do,” McVay said. “It was fortunate for us that they weren’t able to get together for a full-out punt rush. That was exactly how we wanted it to go. Ethan ended up kicking that thing high and ended up expiring the clock. That was the exact intent. It was a really good job by those guys to be able to execute in that situation.”
(Photo: Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)
