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MJD: Rams want Todd Gurley to be 'fresh year-round'

MJD: Rams want Todd Gurley to be 'fresh year-round'
By Jeremy Bergman
Around The NFL Writer
Published: June 6, 2019 at 09:19 p.m. Updated: June 6, 2019 at 11:15 p.m.

The curious case of Todd Gurley's left knee reportedly has the Los Angeles Rams concerned for the running back's health and altering how Gurley will be used going forward.

Gurley told NFL Network analyst and Rams radio color commentator Maurice Jones-Drew this week that he is not hurt. But Jones-Drew said the Rams are planning to use Gurley less in the 2019 season.

"I think you can expect (22 touches per game). But he may not be on the field for 80 snaps," Jones-Drew said on Thursday's edition of NFL Total Access. "He may be on the field for 60 or 50 snaps instead of having to be on the field for 16 games playing 80 snaps to 90 snaps a game. That's not gonna happen anymore."

Gurley played on 74.7 and 75.8 percent of Los Angeles' regular-season offensive snaps in 2017 and 2018, respectively. That equates to 50.4 snaps per game in 2017 and 56.6 snaps per game in 2018. TGIII has also averaged 22.7 touches, 135.3 total yards and 1.4 touchdowns per game over the last two years.

The back's snap rate took a sizable dip last postseason, however, when he played just 56.2 percent of the Rams' offensive snaps and 38 snaps per game, giving way to free-agent pickup C.J. Anderson after suffering a knee injury in Week 15.

Anderson is no longer with the organization, but the Rams have surrounded Gurley this offseason with a solid committee in Malcolm Brown and third-round rookie Darrell Henderson. Rams brass did that with a purpose, Jones-Drew said.

"The plan starts with drafting Darrell Henderson out of Memphis," MJD explained. "Now Todd was a guy where, last year, Todd was on the field 80-plus percent of the time. You don't want that. You want Todd to be able to come in and be explosive in spurts. Malcolm Brown got hurt. Todd had to take over, be the only guy. They only had two backs that were active. Now you're going to three, four backs that'll be active.

"From there, we're not going to run Todd in OTAs and get tread on the tires in OTAs. ... This plan has been laid out between Todd, his personal trainer and coach McVay and the organization on what they're going to do. And they've all bought into it and they're all working well doing it."

This strategy jives with what NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport's reporting earlier this week that Gurley's days of "being the straight-up, every-down bell cow are probably over."

Gurley has not been practicing with the team during offseason workouts, instead taking part in the "planned training program," as explained by MJD. The RB is also reportedly trying to shed half a dozen pounds down to 218 in an attempt to lighten the load on a knee that held him...

Why the Rams won�t let Jared Goff walk

Why the Rams won�t let Jared Goff walk
By Vincent Bonsignore
30m ago

Only two NFL quarterbacks started at least 15 games in each of the past two seasons and finished with a passer rating over 100 while leading their teams to consecutive division championships.

One, Drew Brees, is a future Hall of Famer.

The other, 24-year-old Jared Goff, has presided over the winningest team in the NFL the past two years, its highest-scoring offense, and is coming off a Super Bowl appearance.

At some point over the next decade or so, Brees rightfully will be fitted for a gold jacket signifying his stature as one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to set foot on an NFL field.

As for Goff, well, if you believe the astoundingly lazy observations emanating from the furthest reaches of the NFL stratosphere, he�s little more than a product of the system he plays in and no sure bet to be re-signed to a lucrative long-term extension befitting his place among the best quarterbacks in the game.

From those same corners of the NFL there is speculation that Sean McVay and the Rams are actually considering letting Goff walk at the end of his contract in order to pluck from thin air a younger, less expensive replacement for whom McVay will conjure up all his mystical and magical powers in order to seamlessly insert him into the lineup without the Rams missing a beat.

Because, you know, system quarterback.

The level of absurdity is almost too phenomenal to take seriously.

But it�s also seeped too deeply into public consciousness to let go without comment.

First things first, the Rams are not actually pondering a plan in which they decline to re-sign Goff when his rookie contract expires after the 2020 season. On the contrary, they are planning and preparing their landscape for a world in which Goff is making franchise-caliber money and surrounded by a supporting cast strong enough to ensure playoff contention for the foreseeable future.

Yes, it will be a salary-cap challenge fitting a franchise quarterback contract into the payroll of a championship-caliber roster. But one for which the Rams are already formulating a game plan.

It will require shrewd drafting, especially in the mid-to-late rounds, to continually come up with young, reasonably-priced developmental players that they can eventually rely on to produce. It will entail well-researched and disciplined thinking, knowing when to let veteran free agents walk in order to recoup compensation picks, who to reel in from the free-agent market and when to peddle off draft picks in order acquire instant-impact veteran help.

But given how eight of the last 12 Super Bowl participants did so while their quarterbacks were being paid top-quarterback money, there is ample precedent for constructing championship-caliber rosters around highly paid quarterbacks....

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