Stetson Bennett was ominously placed on the non-football illness list at the start of the 2023 season and the Los Angeles Rams have offered little clarity on why he will miss his entire rookie year. Bennett was never activated and did not return to the team, putting his future as the Rams' starting quarterback in doubt.
Sean McVay provided some updates and his latest comments this week weren't exactly encouraging. It appears that he and the Rams have not reached out to Bennett and will talk to him “at the appropriate time” to see if he is still a good fit for the organization.
“Yes, I think the first thing is communicating with him, which we'll do at the appropriate time. You find out where you're at and is this the thing that we feel is best for him and for our football team to get him back into that ecosystem? Those will be conversations,” McVay said Thursday. Which we will conduct. I think once we have a better idea of what we're going to do with this, it will give clarity. You've got to make sure you know – right now, we have Matthew Stafford and really on our minds, we don't have a backup quarterback that's on this roster. We'll see what that looks like in terms of how it impacts Stetson and the draft or free agency.
The fact that the Rams don't feel like they have a backup quarterback on the roster shows how they view Bennett's odds of playing for them again. Carson Wentz is a pending free agent, and while McVay said “he's done a great job,” there's no indication the Rams will re-sign him.
The Rams drafted Bennett to be Stafford's backup and perhaps his successor at quarterback, using a fourth-round pick on him last year. He struggled in the preseason but Los Angeles is still committed to him as QB2.
With his future very much in doubt, the Rams will need to either draft a quarterback or sign a free agent to back up Stafford in 2024.
