The Los Angels Rams had one of the most dynamic offenses in league history in 2017 and 2018, mainly because of the production they got from running back Todd Gurley.
In 2019, that offense simply was not the same. Gurley dealt with knee issues in 2018 that seemed to carry over to 2019. To help mediate his knee injury that has been described as arthritic, the Rams allowed Gurley to have a personalized offseason workout schedule and managed his workload throughout the year. Although Gurley was able to play through the season, it was one of his worst seasons to date.
Despite that, it appears that Rams general manager Les Snead was just happy to keep him on the field. According to Stu Jackson of TheRams.com, Snead hopes to continue to keep Gurley fresh for the latter half of the season and hopefully the postseason as it has been effective in the past:
“The goal is very similar to what we’d do with our wide receivers: the more snaps they play early, the less fresh they are later,” Snead said. “So that’s running backs, that’s usually a lot of people that spend a lot of time running a lot of yards on the football field. So all that science is coming to, you want to utilize it, but you still want to win the game at hand and be intuitive of how you use things.”
Outside of the Rams offensive line, the team was healthy for much of 2019, indicating the rest did help. Although they had a talented roster, inconsistent play led to their early offseason.
Snead acknowledged the team’s inconsistencies, but was still happy to have Gurley available and healthy in those late-season games, which were actually his best:
“I would say the good thing about that plan is that Todd was available,” Snead said. “I mean, he was playing last game, what you didn’t notice, he was fresh in the red zone, didn’t score as many TDs here as he had in the past but was still probably (a) top-five touchdown maker. There was definitely some positive effects of trying to come up with a good way to keep him (fresh) – and again, it goes with our wide receivers, it goes with our tight ends, probably less our offensive linemen, but the players who are spending a lot of time running a lot of yards, how do we keep them fresh, beginning of the game, end of the game, September, October, into January. That science is all new, and we’re all trying to utilize it to the best of our abilities.”
As the Rams continue to trust in their “new science”, it is likely the Gurley will have a restful offseason once again. Hopefully, even if he rests early in the 2020 season, he can be better utilized than he was in 2019 so the Rams can return to the postseason.
