ATHENS- The story of Stetson Bennett isn't over yet, which is a story unto itself.
Sandwiched between two first-round draft picks on the LA Rams ' depth chart, Bennett is listed as Matthew Stafford's backup for Thursday night's season opener against the 49ers. That Bennett is in the NFL at all is one of the astonishing tales in football lately.
Bennett was a walk-on at Georgia in 2017 when he served as the scout team quarterback for Georgia's showdown with the No. 2 Oklahoma Sooners in the Rose Bowl Game. He was to mimic Baker Mayfield , and pressure Georgia's defense all he could in order to get them ready for that game.
And he did - helping the Bulldogs survive Mayfield and the Sooners in overtime in one of the great games in Rose Bowl history. A year later he transferred from UGA to Jones Community College, with the assumption that he would never return to Georgia.
He nearly didn't. But former Georgia QB Mike Cavan had been keeping up with Bennett. When Justin Fields transferred to Ohio State in 2019, the Bulldogs swooped in on Signing Day to get him back to Athens for the 2019 season as a backup to Jake Fromm .
Then Fromm left after the 2019 season - leaving the starting spot at quarterback wide open at Georgia. COVID complicated matters across college football, but Kirby Smart hired now Cleveland Browns coach Todd Monken to refresh what had become a sputtering Georgia offense.
The Bulldogs had Bennett and four other quarterbacks ready to take their shot to be the starter. No one took Bennett's chances seriously... not even Monken, who became an advocate for Bennett as time went on.
With the offense sputtering in the season opener at Arkansas, Bennett came off the bench to lead the Bulldogs to a win over the Hogs. A week later he started against No. 7 Auburn during Georgia's 27-6 win over the Tigers. He followed that up a week later with a win over No. 14 Tennessee . Bennett didn't play well at No. 2 Alabama or at Kentucky in the following weeks.
He was sidelined during Georgia's 44-28 loss to No. 8 Florida, which opened the door to former five-star USC transfer J.T. Daniels, who took full advantage. Daniels lit up Mississippi State and No. Missouri at the end of the season to seemingly lock down the starting quarterback job for good.
But Daniels wasn't able to stay healthy. He hardly threw the ball down the field in Georgia's 10-3 win over No. 3 Clemson to start the 2021 season in Charlotte. Daniels had to sit out the UAB game a week later, so Bennett and Carson Beck were in a week-long fight to determine the starter of that game.
It was Bennett, who got national honors that week for his record-setting performance against the Blazers. Two games later Bennett would get the starting job back from Daniels, who was sidelined against.
This time he didn't give it back - winning three games in a row against ranked teams. The rest is history. Bennett's play, along with a nasty Georgia defense littered with NFL starters, propelled the Bulldogs to the national title in 2021. Georgia repeated in 2022 - due in large part to Bennett's lethal play at quarterback coupled with Monken's play calling.
Stetson Bennett takes a bow following the Peach Bowl against Ohio State. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
Bennett was then selected No. 128th overall by the Rams. But 2026 was a critical season for Bennett's NFL career. Los Angeles selected Ty Simpson with the 13th overall pick - meaning the franchise doesn't see Bennett as the long-term solution after fellow UGA star Matthew Stafford retires. All the while, Bennett and Simpson battled in the preseason to determine who the backup to Stafford would be. A few days ago, Coach Sean McVay said Simpson and Bennett were very close, and that he would have to decide who the backup close to game time.
"I've talked to the players about it, but that's something that they're both going to continue to train regardless of who it ends up being up and who is the emergency third," McVay told the Rams' official website . "I look at it as both of those guys are going to play, but you saw, we listed Stetson as the two, Ty as the three. But I look at it as the two A, two B and we'll see how we approach the game."
But when the official depth chart came out Bennett was listed as the No. 2, which actually matters in this case. NFL rules dictate that Bennett must play if Stafford leaves the game for any reason. Simpson is the franchise's designated "emergency" signal caller. The former Alabama quarterback can't play unless both Stafford and Bennett are unable to play.
"We feel good about both of those guys," McVay said of the two quarterbacks. "Somebody has to be the backup on game day. Somebody has to be the emergency third. I don't want to necessarily say that whatever we do in Week 1 is how it stays throughout the year, but our job is to develop both of those guys."
As McVay points out, the backup spot could change as the season progresses. But it would be naive to do is dismiss the chances of Stetson Bennett . He's proven that's a bad bet.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/georgia as Los Angeles Rams' Move With Stetson Bennett Prove He's Hard to Bet Against .
