Rams need to prove resting starters on offense in preseason won’t backfire

As the Los Angeles Rams continue to prepare for their first regular season game of 2018, there’s extra pressure in regards to Sean McVay resting the starters on offense all of preseason.

In a matter of days, the Los Angeles Rams will watch their 2018 season officially get underway when they hit the road to take on the Oakland Raiders in what should be a tough battle in the state of California.

Expectations were already high for the Rams heading in to the new season after emerging as one of the surprise contenders in the NFC a year ago, but those expectations hit a whole new level after an offseason filled with numerous key additions.

One of those key additions happened to come on the offensive side of the football when Los Angeles decided to acquire Brandin Cooks from the New England Patriots, providing Jared Goff with another speedy deep threat to work with.

Watching the Rams make NFL history by becoming the first team to go from worst to first in scoring was truly amazing to witness, and while there’s every reason to believe the unit will pick up where they left off in 2018, how they start the new season off is a different story.

Like most head coaches, Sean McVay chose to take the safe approach in the preseason when it came to resting his starters for the most part. And even though it seemed like McVay would play the starters on offense during that third game against the Houston Texans in the preseason, some last-minute injuries forced McVay to make the decision to continue resting them since it wouldn’t be worth it.

With that being said, as great as it was to see McVay take the safe approach by resting his starters on offense like Goff and Todd Gurley for the entire preseason, the question now becomes whether there will be any rust during Monday’s game against the Raiders.

For obvious reasons, McVay never would have rested these key starts on offense throughout August if he didn’t feel confident enough in them being able to compete when it mattered the most come September.

But as confident as the Rams coach may feel, this simply doesn’t mean anything until the unit shows this was exactly the case during the regular season, beginning on Monday when taking on the Raiders.

On another note, at least Monday’s game will consist of the Rams’ offense having one less thing to worry about since Khalil Mack, who was traded to the Chicago Bears last weekend, is no longer part of the picture on defense for the Raiders.