Rams News: Why Stetson Bennett Felt He 'Needed' Year Away from LA

The Los Angeles backup quarterback is back on the gridiron after essentially redshirting his rookie season.

May 28, 2024; Thousand Oaks, CA, USA; Los Angeles Rams quarterbacks Matthew Stafford (9) and Stetson Bennett (13) during OTAs at the team training facility at California Lutheran University. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

After being selected with the No. 128 pick in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL Draft out of Georgia, third-string Los Angeles Rams quarterback Stetson Bennett wound up stepping away from the team for the entire season, essentially red-shirting his rookie year due to mental health issues.

During a conversation on the new podcast "UNRESERVED with TJ Callaway," the 5-foot-11, 190-pound signal caller explained that internalized pressure to succeed at the next level for L.A. was part of the reason he stepped away.

“I needed it,” Bennett said of his absence. “And I think part of it was, I don’t know, there was a million thoughts. I was scared that I wasn’t going to be what they needed me to be.”

The 26-year-old will temporarily serve as Pro Bowl Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford's primary backup for the first two contests of the regular season, while normal QB2 Jimmy Garoppolo sits out as a result of a drug policy violation.

“It is different because you’re much more on an island. At Georgia, it was, ‘Are you good enough? But we’ll still give you food and an education.’ But with the Rams, it’s, ‘Are you good enough? If not, get out of here.’ Right?” he said. “And it is harder not to think about that because you don’t want to be embarrassed and to not be good enough because when I went to Georgia it was, don’t really have much to lose, right? Nobody really knows you. It’s all house money. You’re going out there and if you’re not, then nobody really expects you to. Then you go do whatever."

"But here, it’s very out in the open," Bennett said. "You’re naked to the world. It’s like, are you (good enough)? And if you’re not, then everybody knows. But you can’t really think about that because it just slows you down. But I don’t think you can hide from it, either. You’ve got to know that it’s there because if you know that it’s there, then when that feeling arrives, you just know that, ‘I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got to do this three-step drop that I’ve practiced a thousand times.’ And if you ignore it, then you get that feeling that’s just that feeling, right?”

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