Rams Stetson Bennett's preseason will make everyone forget 2023 struggles

We have all had the chance to listen to LA Rams backup quarterback Stetson Bennett talk about his off-season challenges in the 2023 NFL season on the UNRESERVED podcast. After riding a wave of success at the University of Georgia, Bennett was simply exhausted mentally. He had to compete throughout the COVID-19 scare, then the year after the COVID scare, and all the while he had to dance on the razor's edge of not only not competing, but not even making the team with the depth at the quarterback position. And from those mental gymnastics, Bennett led the University of Georgia to two consecutive NCAA National Championships.

He gets to the part about trying to shed his self-doubts later in the podcast, and it's at that part, in his own words, where it all makes sense. And by 'it all makes sense,' I mean the need to step away from the game of football for a season at the 1:11:26 minute mark:

"Self-confidence for me, it is not innate. It is not, I was not born – like, I was always sure of myself but I am confident in what I do because what I do, I can see. Did I practice throwing 10 balls today, like an out route? Pretty confident I can hit that out route, right? And I do not have to practice everything, but it goes back to the work. If you do not do the work, in my mind, then you do not deserve it.
And so, I think, I do not want to speak for The Man Upstairs, but whenever He designed this place, like, you do not really get to cheat the game, right? Like, you cannot cheat the game.
So work, and then the confidence comes from that. The letting go and almost being an NFL quarterback, being the face that people see. The hero and zero. That is kind of what I’m trying to figure out now."

Stetson Bennett

The LA Rams had to face their own struggles with mental exhaustion in 2022. The rise to the heights of NFL glory by hoisting the Lombardi Trophy, to the constant struggle of competing in the face of another new significant injury to a starting player. After finishing 5-12, LA Rams HC Sean McVay had to step away from the game to rediscover his own passion for football once more. And when he came back, he returned with the knowledge that competition can mean falling short. He came back knowing that the Rams were no longer realistically in the hunt to win a Super Bowl in 2023.

But the Rams finished 10-7 with a roster restocked with bargain basement veterans and passion-filled young players. So stepping away from the game and rediscovering the love of football can indeed have a happy ending.

So what lies ahead for this young quarterback in this season?