Rams sign veteran kicker Brandon McManus after losing Blake Grupe

The Rams have themselves another kicker. Los Angeles is signing veteran Brandon McManus, the third different specialist the club has cycled through in three weeks, after Blake Grupe's knee injury ended his season.

The sequence that produced Tuesday's move was compressed into a matter of days. Los Angeles cut Harrison Mevis, signed Grupe as his replacement, then lost Grupe to a knee injury that Mike Garafolo reported Monday will keep him out for the rest of the season. McManus and free agent Matt Prater both worked out for the team Tuesday, and the Rams chose the veteran — a decision first reported by Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo.

McManus is not a stopgap plucked from anonymity. He has kicked for Denver, Green Bay and others across a long career, and Garafolo framed the signing as the veteran returning to the NFL for a 13th season. For a Rams team that has already cycled through two kickers this month, the appeal is a known quantity rather than another projection.

The timing is not incidental. Los Angeles is on the road at Las Vegas on Sunday, a trip that follows a Week 6 loss to Arizona. It also follows a Monday injury briefing that was brutal beyond the kicking game: Sean McVay's club is without wide receiver Davante Adams for an extended stretch with a hamstring injury and is sending defensive tackle Kobie Turner to injured reserve with a groin issue.

That wider injury picture is exactly why the kicker question kept demanding an answer. A team missing its top receiver and a starting interior defender cannot afford to leave points on the board in the kicking game, and the Rams have now spent three weeks churning through replacements to find stability. Whether McManus is the answer will be visible quickly — Sunday in Las Vegas is his first audition.