Rams draft ex-Georgia QB Stetson Bennett in fourth round
The Los Angeles Rams selected two-time national champion quarterback Stetson Bennett at No. 128 overall in the fourth round of the NFL draft on Saturday.
Bennett led the Georgia offense in each of the past two seasons, when the Bulldogs went a combined 29-1 and won the 2021 and 2022 College Football Playoff national titles.
Bennett threw for a Georgia record 4,127 yards, 27 touchdowns and seven interceptions in 2022, added 10 rushing touchdowns and finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting. In four seasons at Georgia, he racked up 8,428 passing yards and 66 touchdowns with 21 interceptions.
Three weeks after the national title game in January, Bennett was arrested in Dallas on charges of public intoxication after residents complained he was banging on front doors in a neighborhood at 6 a.m.
He enters the NFL with some other question marks, too. He is not the ideal height of an NFL quarterback, measuring 5-foot-11 at the scouting combine, and at 25, he will be an older NFL rookie.
Entering the draft, the Rams had only 35-year-old Matthew Stafford on the QB depth chart. Stafford is a fellow former Georgia quarterback.
Stafford is coming off a season-ending injury, a spinal cord contusion that caused him to miss the final seven games, as Los Angeles missed the playoffs one year after winning the Super Bowl.
Bennett was the seventh quarterback selected in the 2023 draft, going one pick after the New Orleans traded up to No. 127 to tab ex-Fresno State quarterback Jake Haener.
The Las Vegas Raiders closed the fourth round by selecting Aidan O’Connell, the starting quarterback at Purdue the past two seasons.
Two more quarterbacks were taken within the first five picks in the fifth round. The Arizona Cardinals grabbed Clayton Tune, who played at Houston, and the Cleveland Browns selected Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who threw for 10,710 yards in five seasons at UCLA.
–Field Level Media
