Stetson Bennett hasn’t played a game since the national championship game on Jan. 9, 2023, when he led Georgia to a 65-7 win over TCU. He spent last season at home in Georgia working on his mental health.
Bennett needs to play, which means Jimmy Garoppolo probably won’t play in the preseason.
Garoppolo, though, also might need some work since he played only three snaps in the final nine games of last season and must serve a two-game suspension to open this season.
So, coach Sean McVay said Garoppolo will have the final say.
“I’ll talk to Jimmy,” McVay said, via a transcript from the team. “I would probably say probably not because I think it’s important for Stetson to get a bunch of work, and Jimmy’s played a lot in this league. If he said that he thought he wanted to, knowing that he’s going to miss those first couple weeks, I’d be open to it. My inclination right now is that I would not want to play him unless he told me he wanted to.”
The Rams list Garoppolo as the backup to Matthew Stafford with Bennett and Dresser Winn co-third string quarterbacks.
Garoppolo will have to leave the team after the preseason for violating the league’s performance-enhancing substances policy. He has said he failed to follow the NFL’s Therapeutic Use Exemption, which allows an exemption for certain banned substances.