Five Takeaways From Rams 2025 Training Camp Day On

1. The Rams have a special, cerebral player in Nate Landman. Landman continually snuffed out the run and play action, making critical decisions that prohibited the ball from being thrown downfield. Landman appears to be the difference maker that will take this defense from explosive to dominating.

2. Stetson Bennett looked fantastic. He was making smart decisions, solid throws, and outperformed Jimmy Garoppolo. I asked Sean McVay about his thoughts regarding Bennett's performance.

“I thought he did a nice job. I was really pleased with Jimmy, I thought he had great command," said McVay. "Then I thought Stetson came in and really managed the second offense really well. There was a lot of instances where he's going against the first group. I thought he was good with his decision making, showed some good movement. I thought he changed his arm slot and was able to get the ball where the coverage dictated. I was pleased with Stetson. [Rams Quarterback Coach] Dave [Ragone] does an excellent job with our quarterbacks as a whole, and I thought both those guys did a nice job today.”

3. If Jimmy Garoppolo needs to play, the Rams would need to restructure their offense, making Davante Adams the priority target. Garoppolo didn't have the best day but it's also his first day throwing again. He needs to get into rhythm. However, it's clear certain elements of the offense will not work when he's in so if he does see the field, the Rams will need to change things up and looking at how often he targeted Adams, it would be the same approach the Vikings did with Justin Jefferson to unlock Sam Darnold.

However, Garoppolo did run in a touchdown and was immediately dapped up by Adams with both men smiling, so any thought that there are issues from their time with the Raiders can easily be put as false.

4. Jarquez Hunter is a bulldog. Keep in mind that this was day one and players were in jerseys and shorts, no pads. Hunter tried to run through the entire defense, sprinting upfield long after the play was over. He wants it badly and he's taking no prisoners with Rams' defenders having to corral him with the most effort they spent on run defense the whole day.

5. The Rams defense came to play. Jared Verse led the troops with boisterous noise as Quentin Lake added to the talk. The defense as a whole was firing, locking down the Rams in the secondary with Charles Woods in particular having an outstanding play.

Woods pressed Puka Nacua at the line of scrimmage, released at the perfect time, jumped the pass, but an easy pick-six fell out of his grasp. Not a bad day at all.