The Rams trusts the future to untested young players, including Stetson Bennett

To many fans, the future is now. Week 1 defines as far into the future for the LA Rams football team that they are ready to peer. After all, the future is uncertain. All we know about the team's future is that the players and coaches who are with the team today will not remain intact with this team in 2025. Not even winning Super Bowl LVI could ensure that the Rams roster would remain intact.

So it's a pretty safe bet that, after the 2024 NFL season, some coaches and players will sign on with other NFL teams. I cannot cite specific data about such annual turnover, but it seems as though this team has to reform a coaching staff and a roster more thoroughly and often than any other NFL team.

Perhaps that is the motivation for the team to onboard nearly a third of the active roster as rookies recently. Not just once, but for two consecutive seasons. That is simply not the type of roster-building strategy for an NFL team that is chasing another Super Bowl ring.

And yet, players in the first and second years of their rookie contracts are abundant on this team. Not just on a rebuilt from the ground up defense, but in key roles on offense as well. Thanks to the success of recent drafts, the team has an even brighter future to expect as a result of this year's youth movement.

This is not about embracing young players. Rather, this is about a team hiring only the finest football coaches from among the ranks of professional and collegiate football coaching ranks, empowering them with the promise to promote their careers, and relying on that high-talent coaching staff to infuse quality principles and techniques into the crop of rookies that arrive every year.

And so far, the coaches have been doing their job. Let's take a look at the 'next wave' of player who are young and perhaps off the radar now, but who will certainly have a role to play in the future success of this team:

ILB Omar Speights

While the LA Rams did not draft an inside linebacker during the 2024 NFL Draft, the team did address the position. Twice in fact. The front office signed Marshall rookie ILB Elias Neal to the team, and also added LSU rookie ILB Omar Speights to the team. At the time, the team was committed to veteran ILB Ernest Jones, and the truth is that four inside linebackers were on the depth chart ahead of both Neal and Speights.

So the chances of either getting past the practice squad appeared very remote, at best. But things rapidly changed.

Three things changed, in fact. The team had to endure a lingering knee injury to ILB Ernest Jones, a recurring injury that would not only hinder him from participating in important installs through training camp, but would hamper his command of a brand new defense. After all, he was added to run former DC Raheem Morris's defense. The new Chris Shula defense was brand new.

Another new development was the interest of the team in extending ILB Ernest Jones. Typically, extensions are signed after a player's third season. But this team, despited publicly saying that negotiations would occur at the end of the 2024 NFL season, seemed less and less likely. The team's new defensive scheme emphasized safeties.

Ernest Jones is an inside linebacker.

Then the unthinkable happened. Both undrafted rookie inside linebackers Omar Speights and Elias Neal performed undeniably well in preseason. So well, in fact that the idea of not extending Ernest Jones was not longer an option. It became inevitable. And so, GM Les Snead does what he does best. He moved instantly to distance the team from Ernest Jones.

The present may belong to ILBs Christian Rozeboom and Troy Reeder. But the future belongs to ILBs Omar Speights and Elias Neal.

WR Jordan Whittington

Almost all collegiate wide receivers strive to perfect their ball catching skills, and try to perfect their separation skills during route running to augment their ability to pile up huge numbers of receiving yards throughout a season. But just like the NBA also rewards strong defense from basketball players as that is a far more difficult skill to find among rookies, the NFL, more importantly, the LA Rams, reward wide receivers who do all of the other tasks asked from the position at the NFL level.

And former Texas wide receiver Jordan Whittington checks all of the boxes.

Despite competing in just two preseason games, Whittington ended the preseason with 126 yards, the fourth-best receiver performance in all of the NFL. And I needn't remind you that he caught passes exclusively from QB Stetson Bennett, a quarterback who was away from the game for nearly a year.

His performance was so impressive that some NFL analysts and Fantasy Football gurus began to project Whittington as high as a WR3 for fantasy football.

While that is all a bit overly optimistic for 2024, it is bound to happen at some point in Jordan Whittington's NFL career. But not as a WR3 option. Whittington can block, create separation, catch passes in traffic, fight for abundant amount of yards after a catch, run crisp and precise routes, and can even carry the football for the occasional jet sweep.

Some viewed his production at the University of Texas and his speed and sought WR help elsewhere. The Rams front office viewed his ability to block, to embrace the dirty jobs on offense that most receivers shy away from, and knew instantly that he would work in this offense.

His preseason excellence did not come at the cost of scrubs who would not make their respective teams. Whittington made many catches against starters and rotational defensive backs likely to be on the football field in nickel and dime packages. And Bennett managed to find him 11 times.

Whittington has a bright NFL career ahead of him.

DB Kamren Kinchens

While rookie defensive back Kamren Kinchens did not get a great deal of work in the 2024 preseason, the team wanted to make sure that he had a solid feel for the game in as realistic conditions as possible. With three safeties ahead of him on the depth chart, his participation in preseason games was a certainty.

Despite Kinchens limited amount of work in the preseason, he did make his presence felt. While statistics for defensive backs are difficult to find, Kinchens did get credit for a tackle in the team's preseason opener. But we know that the Rams are looking for more out of defensive backs than tackles.

While no formal database seems to reflect the Rams' preseason stats for safeties, we kept track of the receipts of at least one pass breakup by Kinchens against the Dallas Cowboys. In fact, Kinchens appeared to be involved in a number of incompletions throughout the game.

By the time the third preseason game had arrived, Rams HC Sean McVay had seen enough: As a result, Kinchens was told to sit out the third preseason game.

"He (Kamren Kinchens) has done a great job. It was really one of those deals that we did not feel like it was necessary to expose him to possible injury (by withholding him from practice last week and last Saturday(s) preseason game). He is going to be a guy that is going to be a factor for us. So until he was feeling all the way back to health, that was why we erred on the side of caution. We expect him to get a full workload with the two practices here and then the one on Thursday against the Texans (in Houston)."

HC Sean McVay

For now, Kinchens likely awaits specific down and distance scenarios to see his number called to compete in NFL games this year. But he will make the most of his opportunities in 2024.

His true contribution to this team will only grow over time. As he gains experience, he will become more valuable and skillful. leading to even more experience. The team does not often invest in extensions of safeties. As if they needed more reason, the Rams have a future of more Kamren Kinchens to look forward to.

QB Stetson Bennett

It's not easy for Rams fans to embrace the idea that as of right now. The future of the team rests on the shoulders of second-year quarterback Stetson Bennett. Whether it rests in his less than optimal size (He stands 5-foot-11 and weighs 190 pounds), his absence for the entirety of the 2023 regular season, his selection in Round 4 of the 2023 NFL Draft, or simply the lingering vitriol of his winning two consecutive NCAA College Football Championships as the walk-on quarterback for the University of Georgia Bulldogs, the result is the same.

Fans are not warming up to the guy.

But that is not unfamiliar to him. He was not welcomed by Georgia Bulldog fans either. Some didn't trust a walk-on quarterback. Others had the same 'too small to be effective,' perspectives too. But winning make believers out of the most skeptical critics. Two consecutive collegiate championships later, those Bulldog fans are impassioned loyalists.

So, give it time.

Stetson Bennett is not a finished product. But my oh my he is effective. His two-game total in passing yards through preseason was second best in the entire NFL at 437 yards. That outperformed many quarterbacks who had three and even four preseason games.

And that was after a year's hiatus from all football related activities.

You may not fully appreciate Bennett's strengths and weaknesses just yet. But he wins games, and does so in dramatic fourth-quarter comeback fashion. That's a huge plus in a positive direction. And he can improvise. Unlike some quarterbacks of the team's past, Bennett has the ability to extend plays, remain focused downfield, and find his open receiver.

There is a reason why two of the top five NFL preseason receivers played for the LA Rams. WR Xavier Smith hauled in 13 passes (second most) for 101 receiving yards, while WR Jordan Whittington hauled in 11 passes (fourth most) for 128 receiving yards. They don't rack up those many receptions without a fine quarterback under center.

As of right now, only QB Stetson Bennett and Matthew Stafford are under contract for this team beyond 2024. And that is not a random occurrence, mistake, or oversight. The team has positioned Stetson Bennett to be the QB2 for the first two games of the 2024 NFL season, and as of right now, for the entire 2025 season.

The team could add quarterback help next season. But I wouldn't bet the mortgage payment on the team doing so. Particularly if Bennett reclaims his collegiate quarterback forte over the course of the 2024 NFL season.

As always, thanks for reading.