How LA Rams QB Stetson Bennett can hit jackpot playing with house money

Stetson Bennett gets unexpected support from LA Rams GM Les Snead

Even as the fans belief in the young rookie quarterback, the team's support of the young man did not waiver. While the team had every opportunity and perhaps good reason to distance themselves from the rookie quarterback who just didn't pan out, the quality of the Rams football organization was made of better stuff.

Of course, the team had its own experience of burnout. After the 2022 NFL season, the Rams GM Les Snead recognized that his friend and head coach, Sean McVay, was exhibiting signs and symptoms of stress-related job burnout. To his credit, Snead advised McVay to step away from his role, and take the time to decide if he needed up to a year away from the game to find his passion for the game once more.

McVay only needed a week.

But it was that experience with McVay's troubled pass after 2022 that prepared Snead to give his rookie quarterback the same leeway, and conditions. If the head coach of the football could step away from the game to rediscover his passion for the game, why couldn't a rookie quarterback who had led his college team to two consecutive National Championships?

Ultimately, Bennett did step away for a year. And this is what LA Rams GM Les Snead had to say about the ordeal, and how the rookie quarterback was exhausted from football.

To focus exclusively what he said about former Georgia QB Stetson Bennett.

"I know this: Last year was very beneficial for him (Stetson Bennett). I think he took advantage of that year away from the game. You know what, he is an exhausted human being based on everything he had done. Let us just take it as an individual — to walk on, to go to JUCO, to come back, to turn down small schools, say: I am going to try to do this Georgia thing. To win a job. Then to win the thing. And then to determine I am going to come back. And when you come back, it really is (to) win again or you failed. And that does take a toll on a human being."

- Rams GM Les Snead

So how did Coach McVay respond upon returning? He was far more at ease, less stressful, and managed to keep everything associated with 2023, even the slow 3-6 start to the season, in proper perspective. Shouldn't we allow ourselves to learn the lesson from McVay's introspective assessment, and apply that lesson to Stetson Bennett in 2024?