After news came out that Rams running back Cam Akers tore his Achilles while training for the upcoming season, Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson floated the idea of Los Angeles bringing back Todd Gurley.
Dickerson called it a “no-brainer” given how well Gurley knows the offense adding that it would be an “easy fit.”
But last week, head coach Sean McVay said in an interview that L.A. wasn’t yet planning on bringing in a veteran to help replace Akers. Asked directly about Gurley on Monday, McVay reiterated that same stance.
“I don’t think that’s something we’re exploring right now, just the veteran route,” McVay told reporters in his press conference. “Todd’s obviously been a huge part of a lot of good things for the Rams. And I know for me personally, I’m very grateful for all the good things that Todd did and what that meant for our team’s success and the leader that he was.”
McVay noted that the difference between now and in 2018 when the club brought in C.J. Anderson and he helped propel Los Angeles’ Super Bowl run is that there’s a lot of time between now and the start of the regular season. McVay named Darrell Henderson, Raymond Calais, Xavier Jones, and Jake Funk as players who have an opportunity to display what they can do in training camp.
But, McVay didn’t completely rule out the idea of a Gurley reunion.
“To say that you’d never do it — you don’t want to pigeon-hole yourself into that,” McVay said. “But we are going to use camp as an opportunity to let [RBs coach] Thomas Brown pour into these guys and see how they compete and handle probably a little bit heavier a workload than they anticipated.”
Gurley accumulated 7,494 yards from scrimmage with 70 total touchdowns in five seasons from 2015-2019. He was the AP Offensive Player of the Year in 2017, McVay’s first season as Los Angeles’ head coach.
Gurley spent last year with the Falcons, rushing for 678 yards with nine touchdowns.