THE RAMS’ RESTED DEVELOPMENT
NFC champs stressed player preservation in pre-season by sitting most of their stars
Super Bowl teams get here only after surviving four pre-season games, 16 regular-season games and either two or three conference playoff games.
But this year’s NFC-champion Los Angeles Rams took a bold shortcut.
Head coach Sean McVay decided not to play a single established offensive starter in any of the club’s pre-season games. That’s unprecedented.
Namely quarterback Jared Goff, running back Todd Gurley, receivers Brandin Cooks, Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp, tight ends Tyler Higbee and Gerald Everett and four-fifths of the offensive line in Andrew Whitworth, Rodger Saffold, John Sullivan and Rob Havenstein.
What’s more, McVay sat out most of his defensive starters, except for a smattering of pre-season snaps in the third game, including the entire first-string secondary and most impact linemen and linebackers.
It’s something worth considering when you watch Sunday’s Super Bowl LIII between McVay’s Rams and head coach Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots.
Resting starters, especially prized starters, for most of the first and second pre-season games and for all of the last one is nothing new in the NFL. Alas, it’s no longer a surprise to see superstar players on some teams take only 10 or so snaps across all pre-season games.
No one will ever know which Rams starters might have been spared minor or even catastrophic injuries as a result of McVay’s decision to sit them out for most or all of the meaningless August action. Or whether that rest factored into the Rams going 13-3 and winning their second straight NFC West title. Or whether the Rams, as a result, finished the season as one of the healthiest clubs in the league, if not on NFL record.
One thing’s for sure. They’re not apologizing for it.
“I think the business plan is trying to help our team win games,” Rams COO and executive vice-president of football operations Kevin Demoff said this week. “So if that helped us win more games this year, great. But I think had we gone 4-12, people would have said we’re morons. This is one where we looked at it as process over results.”
That process of player preservation, if you will, started with McVay. And in multiple ways, too.
“Sean is a young coach and very much understands rest,” Demoff said. “We really don’t practise on Wednesdays anymore; we do walk-throughs. We basically made that change in like Week 3 or Week 4.
“And I think one of the great things about Sean was last year, after our Thursday-night game when we didn’t practise and I think we scored 41 or 42 points, he goes, ‘If we can score 40 points without practising in a short week, maybe we can re-evaluate how we look at a longer week.’ I think it’s been great.”
There are negatives to this approach, if only from one group’s perspective: the fans who attend those pre-season games. For example, the Rams were blown out 33-7 by Baltimore in the first pre-season game and 28-0 by the Saints in the fourth one. Think the thousands of fans who bought full-price tickets to those games cared? You know they did.
Demoff said McVay’s decision was well thought out and perhaps hides the fact all Rams starters took part in some intense practice sessions during the summer.
“Sean practises our guys hard in training camp. I think anybody that comes to our training camp practices would see it,” Demoff said. “He’s very methodical. We can control it. Maybe we rested some guys more (than other teams) in the pre-season. But I know the Patriots didn’t, right?”
Right. Belichick is at the other end of the spectrum on the issue of player preservation.
But as Demoff pointed out, just because McVay and Belichick think differently on the topic doesn’t mean either is wrong.
“And we’re both sitting here in the same spot, at the Super Bowl, and the four teams last week all took a different approach, too,” Demoff said. “I think you have to do what’s best for you. And we had two very physical days of practice (in August) with the Baltimore Ravens, so I think to each their own is how it goes.”
Might McVay’s approach spark a trend, especially if his Rams win Sunday’s Super Bowl, that some day soon we’ll see no team play a single starter in pre-season games?
“I could joke that if Sean McVay said we shouldn’t hold training camp at all, we might cancel training camp these days,” Demoff said. “I think every team needs to approach their off-season, their training camp, the way they practise as what’s best for their team. And nobody knows that better than the head coach and the medical staff of each team.
“And so for us, I think if you look at it from Sean’s perspective, on offence we had 10 of 11 returning starters. Brandin Cooks was the only new one. We weren’t putting in a new offence, so you could dial back some of those reps. And we got great work in against Baltimore.
“But on the defensive side, maybe we started slow because of that. … But if we win this game and we’re fortunate enough to be hosting a huge Thursday night or Sunday night game in the (2019 NFL) opener, that might change Sean’s approach next year.”
But short term? McVay’s novel approach in August sure didn’t seem to hurt his team this season, now did it?
Sean (McVay) is a young coach and very much understands rest. We really don’t practise on Wednesdays anymore; we do walk-throughs.