The LA Rams have their second preseason game of the year on Saturday, and the Rams still haven't decided what to do with Stetson Bennett. They could decide to start and play him for a couple series like they did last week during their first preseason game, or they could decide to keep him sidelined for the entire game as well.
At this point it is still unclear what the Rams are going to do, but they are running out of time to make a decision as they play the New Orleans Saints at 4:00 pm EST on Saturday, Aug. 22.
Rams aren't sure what to do with Stetson Bennett in their next preseason game
At the start of this week head coach Sean McVay said he wanted to wait to see how practice goes before deciding if Bennett will play on Saturday or not. Those practices have come and gone, but he still hasn't made a final decision.
McVay really only has two options he is choosing from. He could do the exact same thing that he did last week by letting Bennett start and play the first two series of the game before letting rookie quarterback Ty Simpson play the rest of the game. Or he could bench Bennett for the entire game which he almost did for their first game last weekend.
Simpson will get the most playing time regardless because that is what the Rams and nearly every other NFL team does with their rookies and unproven players during the preseason, but Bennett could still use an opportunity to prove why he deserves to be their backup this season.
Stetson Bennett doen't need to play to win the Rams' backup QB job
Bennett doesn't need to play to win the Rams' backup quarterback job. Conventional thinking says that if he is benched in favor of Ty Simpson that Simpson is who the Rams are siding with to be their backup quarterback this year, but that isn't necessarily true.
As mentioned, the Rams could choose to keep Bennett sidelined for this game, and if they did so it would likely be to keep him healthy. The most logical reason why they would want to keep him healthy is because he has already won their backup quarterback job, if he hadn't won the job then they would probably let him get equal playing time to Simpson.
The last few years Bennett has been the third string quarterback behind Matthew Stafford and Jimmy Garoppolo. During the Rams' preseason games Garoppolo never played because he was their proven backup quarterback, so the Rams let Bennett get all the snaps as their third string QB. Bennett isn't as proven as Garoppolo was, but he is far more proven than Simpson even after his strong performance in the Rams' first preseason game, so if Bennett is sidelined for this game on Saturday it could mean that he's won the backup job.
There is always a chance Simpson could play well again on Saturday and make an even stronger case for why he should be the Rams' backup, but Bennett being sidelined on Saturday may not be as bad as it would seem.
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