The Los Angeles Rams have signed former Las Vegas Raiders starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, per the NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo. Garoppolo is a veteran NFL quarterback that has started 63 games in his 10-year NFL career. Garoppolo projects to be Matthew Stafford’s back-up this fall. Rams head coach Sean McVay is adamant that Stafford will be his starter as long as he is healthy.
Garoppolo’s addition adds further questions to Los Angeles’ future with former Georgia Bulldogs quarterback Stetson Bennett. Bennett, who was the 128th pick of the 2023 NFL draft, was expected to be the Rams’ back-up quarterback in 2023, but things did not go as planned.
The Rams placed Bennett on the reserve/non-football injury list in September. Rams coach Sean McVay’s most recent update on Bennett does not provide many answers to what Bennett’s future will be with the NFC West team.
“Yeah, I think the first thing is you connect with him, which we’ll do at the appropriate time. You figure out, where are you at and is this something that we feel like is best for him and for our football team to bring him back into this ecosystem?” McVay said. Bennett has been away from Los Angeles since September after making the Rams’ roster following Bennett’s mixed-bag performance in the preseason.
McVay continued, “Those will be conversations that we will have. I think once we have a better idea of what we’ll do with that, then that’ll give clarity.”
Los Angeles’ addition of Jimmy Garoppolo should not come as a shock. McVay had previously noted, “We don’t have a backup quarterback that’s on this roster. We’ll see what that looks like in terms of how that affects Stetson and the draft or free agency.”
Ultimately, Los Angeles chose to address the position in free agency. You can’t rule out the Rams from drafting a young, developmental quarterback as Matthew Stafford is 36 years old. The Rams finished the 2023 regular season with a 10-7 record before falling to the Detroit Lions in the wild-card round of the NFL playoffs.