During training camp, teams are able to set up joint practices in order to give their players reps against outside competition.
For the Los Angeles Rams, they had practice with the Las Vegas Raiders last week and will be practicing with the Denver Broncos this week.
Sean McVay has always held out his starters in preseason games, so the joint practices give him an opportunity to give his regulars practice before the start of the regular season.
McVay went into deep detail about why he still supports joint practices and how it benefits a team, via Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk:
“What I think the best part about the joint practices is you get an opportunity to go against a different team, different schemes, different nuances relative to scheme, personnel, techniques and fundamentals at the line of scrimmage, coverage contours, concepts, all those types of things, and you get it in more controlled settings,” McVay said. “That doesn’t mean that injuries can’t occur, but that’s to me been the benefit and that’s always been something that we’ve valued extremely since 2017. We’ve become an outfit that because of those things, we felt like we’ve gotten a lot of good work.
“That does not mean that there’s not important parts of when you get tackled and things like that, but it’s always weighing the risk-reward of the 10 snaps you would get for the starters, or let’s just say you approached each of the three preseason games where they’re getting 10 to 15 snaps, do those 30 to 45 snaps that they would accrue and accumulate, does that equal what you think is best to go into week one healthy and ready to go and being at your optimum ability? If you told me that, ‘Yes, we’re going to be able to play guys, but you’re leaving yourself a little bit more immune to some of the risks in terms of the injuries and stuff,’ and then it’s a no-brainer, but those are the things that we’re always weighing. But I think long story short, I’ve always felt like the practices are more valuable than the games, yes.”
As for whether or not he thinks the league will transition from having more preseason games than joint practices, McVay is unsure but does prefer the opportunities joint practices provide:
“I think there’s a lot of layers to that relative to some of the people at the league office and different things where these preseason games are valuable to be able to evaluate guys or get other opportunities, but if you’re asking me personally, I’ve always leaned towards trying to get that work where you can maximize four opportunities versus somebody else,” McVay said.
“You can get an opportunity to run things that maybe you wouldn’t do otherwise, get looks at different things that other teams are less inclined to activate than what they typically put out there in preseason games, and that’s just our approach. That’s not for everybody, and I think you’ve seen there’s a handful of teams that are leaning more towards they are playing guys a little bit more and those are things that we’re still debating on as it relates to how we want to approach Denver based on how the game unfolds, or based on really how that week of preparation and those practices unfold.”
Joint practices are essential for the Rams given McVay’s resistance to play starters in the preseason, so it’s not surprising to see him take this stance even if a fight or two breaks out regularly.
Cam Akers got into it with Raiders star Maxx Crosby last week although it was nothing serious. Hopefully the same will be the case this week in Denver so both teams can get their necessary work in to be ready for the regular season opener.
