LOS ANGELES — After practice has ended, after players have pulled off their shoulder pads and retreated to the weight room or showers, after coaches have returned to their offices, Stetson Bennett IV and Dave Ragone walk clockwise laps around the Rams’ practice field.
It started around Week 3; Ragone, the quarterbacks coach, asked Bennett, the third-string quarterback, to walk around the field with him. They discuss the game script that was installed that day, the audibles the coaching staff put, whatever had just happened on the grass while Bennett watched from the sidelines.
“At first, it was like once a week and it was kind of random,” Bennett says, “but now we do it every day.”
Bennett doesn’t much get in the way of live repetitions these days. Starter Matthew Stafford takes the lion’s share of the practice snaps with the Rams’ offense and the rest go to backup Jimmy Garoppolo, who also takes on scout-team duties.
But the second-year QB is still finding ways to stay engaged and grow after his year away from football.
“He’s just embraced his role right now and his ability to just improve every single day,” offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur said. “The future is bright for him if he continues to work at the level he is.”
LAYING A FOUNDATION
When Ragone was hired by the Rams in February, it had been several months since Bennett had been around the team facilities. He had spent his rookie year on the non-football injury list for reasons he and the team have declined to share publicly.
But Ragone had developed a relationship with Bennett during the pre-draft process, when the former was the Atlanta Falcons’ offensive coordinator and the latter was a two-time national champion coming out of Georgia.
“The first chance for communication was, ‘I’m new here, I’ve never coached you, slate’s clean and let’s just go and let me figure out how you work and you figure out how I work and then let’s pull the relationship,’” Ragone said. “That’s a daily, continual thing. It’s about earning trust on both ends.”
Bennett began to earn that trust through the extra work he did before and after practices, and with the questions he asked about play calls and techniques.
Despite being a fourth-round draft pick in 2023, Bennett had to earn his spot back on the team. The Rams needed someone to back up Stafford during the first two weeks of the season as Garoppolo served a suspension, and they couldn’t afford someone who wasn’t ready to see the NFL field.
Bennett’s preseason started off on shaky ground, throwing four interceptions against the Dallas Cowboys. But he rallied with a 13-play, 70-yard, game-winning drive capped by a 6-yard touchdown pass. Head coach Sean McVay said after the game it was still an evaluation as to whether or not Bennett would make the team, and he said so again after Bennett led another fourth-quarter comeback the following week. But McVay held Bennett out of the preseason finale, deciding the second-year QB had shown enough improvement to earn a spot on the 53-man roster.
But that’s when the waiting started.
HISTORY RHYMES
This isn’t the first time Bennett has had to bide his time and wait. Before he was one of the more decorated quarterbacks in college football history, Bennett was a walk-on at Georgia who had to transfer to a junior college just to earn a scholarship a year later with the Bulldogs, his childhood team.
Bennett admits it’s strange to think he’s back in a similar situation, but he can take lessons from those early days in Athens.
“All you can do is what you can do,” he explains. “And there’s no need to complain about anything that doesn’t do anything. Just be curious about where you can, get better at, and just do what you can.”
Ragone was a third-string QB during his three-year career with the Texans, so he understands what Bennett is going through. It’s why he has carved out that time after practice to walk with Bennett, just as he’s done with all his third stringers throughout his career.
“I give him a ton of credit because it’s one thing for me to kind of guide him in that, but it’s another thing for him to do it,” Ragone says. “And he’s doing the action of doing which is a credit to him.”
Without live reps, Bennett is left to observe, both at practice and in the film room.
It’s in the latter that Bennett has impressed his coaches and teammates, particularly with the questions he’s asking of Ragone and Stafford. Questions that show he’s starting to understand the concepts the Rams are teaching while also trying to better appreciate the “why” behind those decisions and philosophies.
“You can always tell about how guys are thinking about football by the questions they ask, especially in the quarterback room, and the depth of the question by which they ask,” Ragone says. “And the willingness to do that, I think that’s just as big a deal as asking the question.”
But Bennett is also careful about not asking too many questions, preferring to sit back and learn from Stafford, a fellow Bulldog that McVay says has taken on a mentorship role with Bennett.
“Sometimes you can ask questions that you don’t even really need to ask, you just kind of want to be heard asking questions. I think that’s a trap you can get into,” Bennett explains. “Well, maybe you should just shut up and learn how to see when you have no clue how to see things. Just watching [Stafford], how he does it, being able to see how he just works his butt off.”
While Bennett has largely been left to mental reps, he’s been willing to step in when needed. When receivers Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua were coming back from injury, Bennett made himself available to throw to them before games or after practices.
“No task is too small or too big for him to try to be able to help move the needle forward,” McVay says. “He’s willing to be able to help and assist wherever needed.”
But Bennett says he knows those reps, even against air with just the single receiver running routes, are good for his development as well as the team.
“Every single rep you get on those things is going to benefit you in some way, right?” Bennett asks. “Obviously helping the team but for me it’s been a little bit selfish that I’m like, if they’re like, ‘Hey, could you throw?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, always ask me if I can throw.’ I’m excited for getting [tight end Tyler] Higbee back so I can throw a few times to him.”
Even those opportunities are rare, though, which is why Bennett has to settle into his routine. He’s rarely in the locker room after practices these days, either walking laps with Ragone or spending extra time in the weight room.
And that has gone unnoticed by his teammates.
“He is in such a challenging spot. It’s not fun. You obviously know he’s not getting a lot of opportunities to throw the ball in live action,” Kupp said. “Guys around the building have seen the way that he works, the way that he approaches this and everyone knows this is not a fun place. It’s hard to do that. It’s really hard to come in here with that mindset but not really get the opportunity to go show it, but he’s done it over and over again.”
But, Bennett reasons, what else can he do until the live reps start again?
“You are where you are right now. If I don’t do that, then I won’t be as good whenever I do get to go play football again,” Bennett says. “And I’m counting on that. And if you don’t count on that, it won’t happen.”
