Stetson
Bennett.
Stetson
Bennett.
Georgia· 5'11"· 192 lb· 4.67s 40
"The most decorated résumé in modern college football attached to one of the smallest, oldest arms in the class — a quarterback whose evaluation was always about what the tools would allow, not what the moments proved."Pre-draft read
A timing and rhythm quarterback who ran Georgia's pro-style play-action attack from under center and in the gun, Bennett won with pre-snap diagnosis, footwork tied to the concept, and a willingness to throw receivers open on schedule. He was best on play-action crossers and deep overs, hitching once and letting the ball go before the safety declared.
The secondary trait was competitive mobility: he escaped contained pockets, kept his eyes downfield, and converted third downs with keepers and scrambles. Arm strength was adequate rather than special, so his deep ball lived on touch. The signature was operational calm — bad plays rarely stacked, and his biggest throws came in the biggest games.
Play-action, under-center timing offenses in the Shanahan/McVay family, where the quarterback wins with footwork tied to the concept and full-field rhythm rather than arm talent.
Year 1 developmental QB2 who can run the entire install and hold a game together in relief; ceiling is a bridge starter in a run-heavy, play-action system with a strong offensive line.
Vertical Air Raid or Coryell offenses that demand boundary comebacks and deep outs from the far hash, and hero-ball systems that ask the quarterback to create outside structure.
His value is entirely in operation and timing; the further an offense drifts from structure, the smaller he plays.
Stetson Bennett IV Full Career Highlights (2019-2022)
Four-season Georgia reel showing the play-action timing throws and the intermediate accuracy that defined his operation.
Bennett closes his career with a 6-TD title game
The 2022 national championship performance against TCU: rhythm, anticipation, and full command of the offense on the biggest stage.
Stetson Bennett Film: Experience and NFL Readiness
Pre-draft breakdown of his processing, protection work, and the arm-strength limits that capped his projection.
Bennett arrived at the 2023 process as a football anomaly: a former walk-on and junior-college transfer who left Georgia with back-to-back national titles, a Heisman invitation, and a 25th birthday already behind him. Evaluators had to separate the story from the player, and the player was a compact, quick-processing rhythm passer with more command of an offense than almost anyone in the class.
The production supported the traits. His 2021 season was the efficiency peak and 2022 the volume peak, when Georgia asked him to carry a passing game that no longer leaned on a historic defense to hide it. He beat pressure with anticipation. The flags were structural: a small frame, an arm that shrank the field outside the numbers, and an age curve that made the developmental runway theoretical.
Boards split accordingly. Some rooms had him as a priority free agent, others as a Day 3 backup with two years of championship reps and a starter-caliber understanding of protections. Los Angeles, with Matthew Stafford in his mid-thirties and no succession plan, took the bet at 128 — cheap capital on a quarterback who had never blinked.
- 01
Anticipation
Threw receivers open on crossers and deep overs, releasing before the break and beating safety rotation with timing rather than velocity.
- 02
Big-stage command
His best tape came in playoff and championship games, where the operation stayed clean and the decision-making never sped up.
- 03
Pre-snap processing
Identified pressure, adjusted protection, and worked full-field progressions with a veteran comfort level in a pro-style system.
- 04
Competitive mobility
Escaped muddy pockets with eyes downfield and converted third downs on designed keepers and improvised scrambles.
- 05
Ball placement in rhythm
Accurate to the intermediate middle, layering throws over linebackers into windows that closed a beat later.
- 01
Arm strength
Adequate velocity that limited the deep out and comeback throws to the boundary on NFL hashes and against closing NFL corners.
- 02
Frame and durability
Listed under six feet and around 190 pounds, with throwing lanes that narrowed against length and a body that took hits.
- 03
Age curve
Entered the league at 25 with no meaningful developmental runway, forcing teams to draft the current player rather than a projection.
- 04
Off-platform ceiling
Struggled to generate power when his base was compromised, so broken plays turned into checkdowns instead of explosives.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.67sp50
- Vertical
- 33.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 118inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.20sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Cmp | Att | Yds | TD | Int |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Georgia | 5 | 20 | 28 | 260 | 2 | 1 |
| 2020 | Georgia | 8 | 86 | 155 | 1179 | 8 | 6 |
| 2021 | Georgia | 14 | 185 | 287 | 2862 | 29 | 7 |
| 2022 | Georgia | 15 | 310 | 454 | 4127 | 27 | 7 |
| Career | — | 42 | 601 | 924 | 8428 | 66 | 21 |
Verified against cfbstats.com season pages (Georgia 2019-2022). Season sums match career totals exactly. Jones County JC time is not included; no phantom rows.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Quick processor with limited arm who survives as a QB2 because coaches trust the operation.
Undersized rhythm passer who turned system command and play-action timing into a long career and one elite season.
Day 3 quarterback who never converted draft capital into meaningful regular-season snaps.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The Rams essentially redshirted him. Bennett spent his entire rookie season away from the team on the reserve/non-football illness list, a full year of development erased before it started. He returned in 2024 as the developmental arm behind Matthew Stafford, flashed in preseason work, and did not take a regular-season snap. In 2025 he was the emergency third quarterback behind Stafford and Jimmy Garoppolo and again finished the year without game action. Only in 2026, with Garoppolo gone, did he finally win the backup job outright — four seasons after his last meaningful football, and with a rookie added to the room behind him.
In hindsight this was a fair price for a fair bet that time simply beat. The traits scouts questioned were never the reason he stalled; illness, a crowded room, and a starter who refused to miss snaps kept him off the field until his physical prime had passed. Los Angeles risked a fourth-rounder on the most battle-tested quarterback in the class and got a clipboard and a résumé. The evaluation was accurate — command was real, the ceiling was low — but the outcome says less about scouting than about how little the NFL owes a player who has already proven everything at the level below.