Los Angeles Rams smart to take safe approach for preseason finale

Instead of risking key players in the preseason finale against the New Orleans Saints, the Los Angeles Rams took the safe route by resting them.

As bad as it sounds, there really wasn’t that much excitement surrounding the Los Angeles Rams heading into their preseason finale against the New Orleans Saints, mainly because of the route Sean McVay had taken leading up to the game.

Despite playing some of the starters on defense last week against the Houston Texans, the starters on offense for the Rams went the entire preseason without seeing any action, which sounds crazy, but also safe when it comes to avoiding injuries.

This time of year is always a blessing and a curse at the same time since it’s great to see certain players make a case for a roster spot while others sometimes suffer devastating injuries.

So with McVay having a pretty good idea for the most part of which players are going to stick around, it seemed wise to go with the approach of letting the players battling for the final roster spots take the field against the Saints.

Was it embarrassing to see Los Angeles go on to lose to New Orleans 28-0? If this was the regular season, than yes. But since this was the preseason finale with the only importance being for players looking to make a final push for a roster spot, the final score doesn’t matter at much.

Instead, what matters the most is the Rams didn’t risk any key players suffering injuries while giving some of the other guys a chance to shine since for most of them, this will be their last time suiting up in the NFL.

Now that preseason is officially over and done with, the next step for Los Angeles will be trimming down the roster to 53 players along with preparing for their first regular season action in a little over a week when they take on the Oakland Raiders.

Starting off the year on the road is never an easy task, but at least when compared to other teams across the league, the Rams are one of the healthiest squads heading into September, and McVay deserves credit for it.

Had McVay played some of the other players from previous weeks against New Orleans, chances are Los Angeles would have been able to put up a touchdown or two Thursday night. Nobody likes to be on the wrong end of a shutout, but at the end of the day, it’s better for the Rams to be safe than sorry to give them a better chance of accomplishing the ultimate goal of winning the Super Bowl.