LOS ANGELES — Stetson Bennett IV took a lingering beat, pausing to corral his thoughts after a long, final practice of two weeks of training camp at Loyola Marymount University.
“Oh gosh,” Bennett said with a disarming grin, the 28-year-old quarterback entering his fourth year with the Rams after the organization selected the two-time college football champion in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL draft.
Bennett has yet to take a regular season snap behind center. Much of his last two seasons with the Rams have been spent following quarterbacks coach Dave Ragone around the field with his eyes and ears wide open.
Prestige of the quarterbacks ahead of him on the depth chart — reigning MVP Matthew Stafford and veteran signal caller Jimmy Garoppolo — nudged Bennett into a comfortable third position behind his peers. Relative inexperience with in-game NFL action, however, hasn’t stopped Rams head coach Sean McVay from singing Bennett’s praises during training camp; calling his progress “incredible strides.”
“You got to love how (Bennett) looks,” McVay said last week.
Bennett, McVay said earlier this month, exudes an ownership of the offense — his teammates listen, recognizing Bennett as the voice of the offense while he’s leading the huddle and executing.
“He’s really just taking advantage of his reps, and he’s aggressive, you know?” McVay said. “He’s a playmaker. He’s going to be aggressive, but not reckless.”
McVay said that Bennett has “capitalized” on his training camp opportunities, leading the ones in the offense while Stafford takes his built-in rest days twice in every four-day practice block.
Bennett is ready to answer. He has landed on a metaphor.
“How do you drive a stick-shift?” Bennett said in an interview with the Southern California News Group when asked about the concept of ownership of an offense. “If you don’t know how to drive a stick shift, you’re messing it up.”
“You either know how to do something, or you don’t know how to do something. You’re just more confident with it.”
This is Bennett’s best shot yet. He has a prime opportunity – with Garoppolo in free agency after mulling retirement from his 12-season career – to suit up as primary backup quarterback to Stafford.
The Rams drafted Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson – Bennett joked that he ribs his new teammate in the quarterbacks room for his Crimson Tide affiliation – in the first round of the 2026 NFL draft as their heir apparent to Stafford.
And yet, so far at least, Bennett has received the lion’s share of reps during training camp. If he doesn’t play in preseason games, that could be a telltale sign of his ‘QB2’ standing heading into Week 1 in Australia against the San Francisco 49ers.
“I have been so impressed with what Stetson Bennett has done and the growth that he’s had, the ownership of the offense,” McVay said earlier this month. “(You) can feel his teammates want to root for him, and he’s played really well through the off-season program and up until now and that’s been a real positive for us.”
Bennett’s been in charge of offenses before.
Look at Georgia’s success with the undersized-yet-effective Bennett leading the way: a 29-3 record as starting quarterback, back-to-back national championships in 2021 and 2022 and ending his senior campaign in 2022 as a Heisman Trophy finalist.
Just ask running back Blake Corum. The third-year tailback, who broke onto the scene last year with a 746-yard, six-touchdown rushing effort, turns to Bennett’s presence in the huddle.
“He carries a certain type of aura when he enters the field,” Corum said.
Wide receiver Puka Nacua feels it too.
“There’s a swagger that he has when he walks on the football field, and I know in the receiver room, you can feel that,” Nacua said.
Bennett is calling plays with authority and taking command of the offense, Corum added while highlighting Bennett’s preseason performances of the last two years.
“Coach (McVay) has seen it, us players have seen it — he took a leap in being the field general,” Corum said of Bennett. “… And you can hear it in the huddle.”
Over the offseason, Bennett said there were two priorities on his mind: working on his core strength, and studying the playbook so it becomes “second nature,” he said.
He knows he hasn’t had the reps to study play after play. Bennett points to spending time with Ragone for late-night film sessions, pre-and-post practice discussions over play calling – calling his quarterbacks coach a voice with “constant words of encouragement.”
“I didn’t get very many reps last year, so it wasn’t like I could go back (and watch),” Bennett said. “I remember Peyton Manning said that he’d go through and watch every sack of his previous year, every bad play, and come up with a plan to improve. I didn’t have those plays, cause I didn’t play in the games.”
Bennett had been used to the quarterbacks room with Stafford and Garoppolo.
He shared that he’s learned from the steadiness of Stafford on and off the field, but added that he understands that he can’t replicate Stafford – embracing who he is as a quarterback instead.
For Bennett, 2026 could be quite different. Simpson – who signed a lucrative four-year rookie contract with the Rams before training camp – is Bennett’s direct competition. That’s differerent than facing an uphill battle of leaping past Garoppolo.
Bennett and Simpson, 23, are “buddies,” he said. They hang out off the field and have meals together throughout training camp. Simpson is set to play in preseason action, McVay said Saturday.
“(Simpson) is a great dude,” Bennett said. “He’s a Southern boy like me and we come out here and we compete, and I think that brings out the best in both of us.”
First to admit that there have been ups and downs throughout training camp, Bennett knows there’s room for improvement. Bennett added that although it sounds cliché, his focus is year after year, becoming the best quarterback he can be.
And for the time being, with increased run behind center during training camp, he’s been having a good time in the Rams offense.
“It’s definitely been a lot more fun,” Bennett said of training camp. “I’ve felt more comfortable out there with the guys. I feel like we’re building something that hopefully we’re going to be proud of.”