Sean McVay has put Stetson Bennett IV back in the spotlight for the Rams' first preseason game against the Chiefs, naming him the starter for Saturday at Kansas City after the final practice before the game. It gives Bennett another chance to run the offense in a live setting, and another chance to make his case in a career that still has not included a regular season snap.
The move matters now because Bennett has already done this part of the job enough times to sound familiar. He has played in seven preseason games and started six of them, piling up 1,296 passing yards and eight touchdowns in exhibition action. At training camp, he has handled all of the first-team reps when Matthew Stafford rests and most of the second-team work when Stafford takes the lead, so this start extends the work he has been getting every day in WOODLAND HILLS.
Bennett said this season feels like “a lot more playing football,” a sharp contrast to the stretches when he was mostly watching. Over the last two seasons, he sat behind Matthew Stafford and Jimmy Garoppolo on the depth chart and did not get on the field in a regular season game. That is the detail that hangs over Saturday: he is getting another start before the regular season has ever let him in.
He has not treated the wait as time lost. Bennett said it was tough to watch practice and Sundays without doing much, but he has been in constant conversation with Dave Ragone, who has worked with him on scripts, practice-field preparation and the little things that can still be done away from the field. Bennett said progress has come in pieces, because “It all compounds over time,” and because “It’s time on task.”
The Rams are clearly using the preseason to keep Bennett moving through the offense the way he has during camp, even if the larger path ahead remains unsettled. He said he is trying to do the best he can for the organization and take a step forward every day, but he also acknowledged that he learns more by playing. If Saturday goes the way the team appears to want, it will add one more preseason start to a résumé already filled with them; what it still will not answer is when, or whether, that work finally turns into a regular season chance.
