For the past two years, Sean McVay has kept the vast majority of his starters on the sidelines during the preseason. Jared Goff, for example, hasn’t taken a preseason snap since 2017. For every coach, it comes down to balancing risk and reward.
McVay doesn’t believe the reward of playing his starters outweighs the risk of injury, which is why he takes a more cautious approach to these exhibition games each year. That could change in 2020, though.
The NFL has banned joint practices and canceled minicamp, which will significantly limit the Rams’ opportunities to not only practice, but get in quality work against other opponents. McVay has stressed the value of joint practices in recent years, and Jared Goff even prefers them to preseason games.
With no joint practices and possibly only two preseason games, McVay has yet to decide on an approach to the Rams’ exhibition contests.
“The thing that definitely comes into play is the inability to practice against other teams, which we’ve loved to be able to use as an opportunity to say, let’s create a competitive atmosphere and environment while limiting the risk for injuries,” he told reporters Thursday. “Whether it’s two [games], whether it’s four, I definitely think committing to one approach right now wouldn’t be the smartest way to go about it. I think guys need to get work. How we deem that ends up getting done, whether it’s in our practices or whether we’re going to play guys in the preseason will be something that we’ll determine at a later date.”
It’s hard to imagine Goff taking any snaps in the preseason, given his importance to the team and the Rams’ lack of proven talent behind him if an injury were to occur. The same can be said about 38-year-old Andrew Whitworth, Aaron Donald and probably Jalen Ramsey – all of whom are of the utmost importance to the team.
With as many position battles as the Rams will have, though, some starters will need to play in the preseason. For instance, there are competitions at inside linebacker, outside linebacker, guard, center, right tackle, nickel back and at WR3.
It’ll be hard to settle those battles only in practice, which should lead to several of the players at the aforementioned positions playing in the preseason.