Fans hoping to see Jared Verse, Braden Fiske and Blake Corum in Week 2 of the preseason will be disappointed by Sean McVay’s recent comments about the Los Angeles Rams’ plan for Saturday. Those three rookies were held out of action in the preseason opener against Dallas and all of them will sit again on Saturday night.
In fact, all of the players who sat out the opener for non-injury reasons will also sit out Saturday’s game against the Chargers – and potentially some other players, too. That includes Kyren Williams, John Johnson III, Cobie Durant, Byron Young and Kobie Turner.
“We have some guys that you want to be mindful of going into this game,” McVay said Thursday. “Some guys that have gotten a bunch of yards, a bunch of work. It’s not exactly like a game, but we ended up getting on both sides of the football, 107 snaps on each side with our first and second groups (Wednesday vs. Cowboys). There were a lot of different things that took place. After I finish up with you guys, we’ll end up talking with Reggie [Scott] and I’ll kind of have an idea. But all the guys that didn’t play last week, that’ll be the same thing. There might even be a couple more guys that we hold out.”
The Rams approach the preseason with an abundance of caution, using it mostly as an opportunity for young players on the roster bubble to prove themselves. McVay has been even more careful this year, holding out his top rookies despite them never playing an NFL snap before.
Jimmy Garoppolo was among the players who didn’t suit up in the opener and he won’t play in Saturday’s game either, though McVay didn’t rule out the chance that he could play in the final preseason game before serving his two-game suspension.
“He won’t. I think it’s important to be able to get Stetson [Bennett] those reps,” McVay said. “Jimmy got a bunch of work yesterday and I thought that was really good for him. He got even more than what we thought because Matthew participated in the first couple of periods. I thought it was great work for both of those guys. Jimmy has played a lot of football. I think it’s important for Stetson to be able to get those reps. Whether or not we take that same approach for the third preseason game, haven’t determined that.”
It sounds like it’ll be the Stetson Bennett show again on Saturday night after he played the entire first preseason game, ceding no reps to Dresser Winn.