Rams QB Stetson Bennett IV placed on non-football injury list

THOUSAND OAKS — The Rams placed quarterback Stetson Bennett IV on the reserve/non-football injury list Wednesday.

Bennett, a fourth-round rookie who won back-to-back national championships at Georgia, missed the season opener against the Seattle Seahawks with a shoulder injury. But head coach Sean McVay said this situation was unrelated to the shoulder, and declined to go into further detail.

“Out of respect for him and the situation, I’m going to leave all the specifics and particulars in-house,” McVay said. “There’s 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 and that’s where I’d like to leave it.”

Bennett, 25, played in all three preseason games for the Rams, starting the final two. He made some rookie mistakes throwing into coverage that led to three interceptions, but showed some signs of the quarterback he was in college as he completed 58.1% of his passes for 347 yards and one touchdown.

He was absent from practices last week but still around the locker room. On Wednesday last week, he was ruled out of the season opener with the shoulder injury.

But McVay, who says he’s spoken with Bennett about the situation, said the decision to move him to the NFI was something unrelated.

Bennett was selected by the Rams in April’s draft with the idea of him being Matthew Stafford’s backup moving forward. The Rams will continue to depend on veteran Brett Rypien in that role as they wait on Bennett, though McVay last week did not rule out the possibility of signing another quarterback.

“[Rypien is] going to continue to be in that situation until anything changes on that note,” McVay said. “That’s kind of where we’re at right now.”

Briefly

Right guard Joseph Noteboom (ankle sprain) was a partial participant in practice, but McVay said on Monday he is not expected to miss the Week 2 game against the San Francisco 49ers.