The Rams lost running back Cam Akers to a torn Achilles in July. At the time, the Rams didn’t expect to see Akers before next season.
Now, with where Akers is in his rehab after 14 weeks, the Rams are “cautiously optimistic” he can return for the postseason.
“You don’t want to be presumptuous, but if we are able to make the playoffs and give ourselves a chance to play after (the regular season), the expectation is that Cam would be available to play,” Rams coach Sean McVay told Jourdan Rodrigue of TheAthletic.com on Monday. “He’s on track to do that. He was running at 80 percent body weight at 10 miles per hour pretty effortlessly, and from the cameras that I saw last week that are kind of right behind his feet on the treadmill, unless you saw the scar you wouldn’t notice any sort of hitch in his giddy-up on that. He’s attacking the rehab the right way.
“He’s doing great. I think the plan is, if we’re able to play past the regular season, we’ll get Cam back this year, and he’ll be playing in the playoffs.”
Akers led the Rams with 145 carries for 625 yards as a rookie, and they expected him to be their primary ball carrier again this season. He was injured during an off-site training session.
The Rams placed Akers on the active/non-football injury list July 28, allowing for his return if he is healthy enough to do so.
“You ask Cam, there is no doubt in his mind that he’ll be ready if that opportunity presents itself. That’s what he is preparing for,” McVay told Rodrigue. “I think I’m always looking at (Akers) as a plus-one, because I still think that is asking a lot. Until you really have tangible evidence of, ‘What can he do?’ I am kind of looking at him as a bonus. Like, holy shit. You get him back, that’s unbelievable for our team. And if he’s actually the Cam that we all know, now you can start to run some different personnels where you can start to put some pressure on people with he and Darrell (Henderson) in the game at the same time. I think what I would say is, ‘cautious optimism’ would probably be an appropriate (phrase).”