The San Francisco 49ers will face off against the Los Angeles Rams this Sunday and ahead of the matchup, the Rams added a big kicker to their practice squad in Harrison Mevis.
Signed from the UFL, Mevis has made 20 of his 21 field goals with the Birmingham Stallions. He has been signed by NFL teams in the past, but he has yet to see any action in an NFL game.
He has been dubbed the "Thiccer Kicker" due to his abnormal size for a kicker as he stands 5-foot-11 and weighs 243 pounds. Desperate times may call for thicker measures for Los Angeles as it brings Mevis in to provide a little competition for the beleaguered placekicker, Joshua Karty.
Karty has made just 10 of his 15 field-goal attempts this season, and he has also missed three extra points. His kicking struggles played a big role in San Francisco's victory over LA earlier in the season as he missed a field goal and an extra point in a tightly contested game that was decided in overtime.
It remains to be seen whether the Rams will go with Mevis over Karty ahead of the their second matchup with the Niners, but the fact they are bringing him onto the practice squad at least shows that Karty is on notice and needs to step up his game going forward.
Surprisingly, the 49ers may end up having a special teams advantage in Sunday's game. Ever since the team got rid of Jake Moody and replaced him with Eddy Piñeiro, field goals have been seemingly automatic as Piñeiro has made all 19 of his field-goal attempts and only missed one extra-point attempt on his first one with the team in Week 2 against the New Orleans Saints.
San Francisco is the fourth best team in special teams EPA through the first nine weeks of the season, while the Rams are the second worst in the NFL in that category. Piñeiro is a big reason to do with that, but not for a while could the 49ers say with a straight face that they had a distinct special teams advantage over an opponent.
We'll see how Sunday's contest shakes out and whether the "Thiccer Kicker" will go head to head with "Eddy Dinero."
But no matter what, the 49ers will certainly feel a lot more confident if they have a kick to win the game than the Rams will.