When the Los Angeles Rams opened the 2023 season back in September, it looked like Stetson Bennett was going to serve as the team’s backup quarterback behind Matthew Stafford. However, that never happened.
As it turned out, the rookie quarterback, who was taken in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL Draft, didn’t even suit up for a single game last season. Bennett missed the Rams’ opener with a shoulder injury, and then, three days later, he was placed on the non-football injury list (NFI). At the time, the Rams didn’t offer any details about why Bennett was placed on the list or when he might be back. 
“There are certain things that I think are a little bit bigger and more important, and out of respect for the particulars and the specifics, [I] want to be able to keep it in-house,” Rams coach Sean McVay said back in September when asked about the situation.
Eight months later, Bennett is now back with the Rams, and on Tuesday, he held his first press conference since last year. During his meeting with the media, Bennett was mostly vague about why he missed the season, saying that he wanted to “keep that in-house,” but he did admit that his mental health played a factor in his absence.
“Yeah, I’d say that,” Bennett said, via ESPN.
Although Bennett didn’t offer very many details about why he was away from the team, the Rams have been slightly more open about why he missed nearly all of his first year in the NFL.
During a recent interview with News 19 in Alabama, Rams general manager Les Snead made it sound like Bennett might have just been burnt out after leading Georgia to two straight national titles. 
“I know this: Last year was very beneficial for him. I think he took advantage of that year away from the game,” Snead said, via RamsWire. “You know what, he’s an exhausted human being based on everything he had done to walk on, to go to JUCO, to come back, to turn down small schools, say ‘I’m going to try to do this Georgia thing.’ To win a job, then to win the thing, and then to determine, ‘I’m going to come back.’ And when you come back, it’s really win it again or you failed. And that does take a toll on a human being, so I was jacked for Stetson to be able to take that moment and breathe a little bit.”
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