Former NFL QB pumps the brakes on Stetson Bennett hype from preseason start

Contrary to Pat McAfee literally only playing a reel of Stetson Bennett’s completions against the Chargers and having the room compare him to Brock Purdy, former NFL quarterback J.T. O’Sullivan analyzed the rookie’s first preseason start and emphasized just how lucky he was to not throw three or four interceptions.

In fact, the first three plays that O’Sullivan shows in his Bennett breakdown film are dropped interceptions. These weren’t the first three plays of Bennett’s night, but pretty close to it and even if the passes were spread out over four quarters it would still amount to three decisions that could have been been costly mistakes.

This was only Stetson Bennett’s first career NFL preseason game. Nobody here is writing off the Georgia product simply because of one night, so let’s not twist this into being anything more than it is and O’Sullivan would be the first person to remind fans of that: It was his NFL preseason debut!

That doesn’t mean that people are not allowed to analyze the film and what actually happened on the field for this one game. Just as it was fair for O’Sullivan to praise Bennett for his laser shot touchdown pass in between defenders, so too can we agree that the rookie had a lot more attempts that he regrets than what the box score showed.

I recommend watching the whole video to get a sense for how Stetson Bennett played against the Chargers. J.T. O’Sullivan being a former quarterback, he is as fair as they come on YouTube and constantly reminds viewers that he’s not in the meetings, he didn’t get a chance to talk to coaches or players about their assignments, this is just how he sees the footage based on his experience as a quarterback who was in the NFL from 2002 to 2010.

Despite Bennett playing the most snaps and having the most dropbacks of any quarterback in the league in Week 1, this could actually be an indication that Sean McVay is more comfortable with Brett Rypien as the backup to Matthew Stafford. We should expect Bennett to play the majority of snaps against the Las Vegas Raiders on Saturday in his second preseason start. He might also play a lot better and have no interceptions or near-interceptions.

Going against the Chargers was just one game. Whether you liked what you saw or didn’t, it was just one game.