Cam Akers missed two games in Weeks 6 and 8 due to a disagreement with the Rams, causing the team to try to trade him. He returned on Sunday against the Buccaneers, playing his first game in a month.
His opportunities were limited, both by the offense’s ineptitude and his spot on the depth chart, but Sean McVay was pleased with the way Akers played. He evaluated his performance in Sunday’s game, recognizing that he didn’t have many chances or much running room, resulting in his 3 yards on five carries.
“I thought he did a good job with what he could control. The snaps were minimal, there wasn’t a whole lot of space,” McVay said Monday. “I thought he had a good, tough short-yardage run that converted. I thought he had a good blitz pickup on a quick out route that we hit to Cooper (Kupp) on our near sidelines when Devin White ended up blitzing internally. I thought he did a nice job. It was good to be able to get him back in the mix. The hard thing is that, while you want to be able to get guys involved, whether it’s a running back getting more touches, whether that be Cam or Darrell (Henderson Jr.) or whoever it might be, or get more receivers involved, for you to be able to do that at the level that we’re accustomed to and what you guys have seen, there needs to be production offensively and more opportunities to snap the football and have more touches to go around. So that’s where some of those challenges have been. All these things are just excuses from my end, but I thought with what Cam could do and what he could control based on his snaps, I was pleased with Cam.”
Henderson got the bulk of the carries out of the backfield, rushing 12 times for 56 yards – including a 23-yard run, which was the Rams’ longest of the season. Henderson also played 49% of the snaps compared to 19% for Akers, and McVay indicated Henderson could get even more work moving forward after his encouraging performance.
That doesn’t bode well for Akers’ role, but at least he’s back in the building and contributing to the team as a backup.
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