The story of training camp for the Los Angeles Rams this year is undoubtedly centered around the team’s injury bug. That’s one reason why former NFL general manager Michael Lombardi was quick to point out the Rams, unprompted, as being the team worst hit by injuries in training camp in 2024 on his GM Shuffle podcast this week. A year ago, it was Cooper Kupp. In 2022, Matthew Stafford barely threw any passes in training camp and we saw what happened during the regular season. In 2021, Cam Akers tore his Achilles in July and L.A. limped to its Super Bowl victory.

Is this normal or abnormal and is there a root cause of these Rams injuries in camp?

“For example, the Rams”, Lombardi said. “Three offensive linemen, both A.J. Jackson at left tackle and Jonah Jackson at left guard, then Puka Nacua, then Rob Havenstein. They’re going through injuries there in practice that they can’t really afford going back to Detroit (for Week 1 Sunday Night Football).”

And that’s with Lombardi failing to mention Derion Kendrick’s torn ACL.

So far in camp, star receiver Puka Nacua is week-to-week, three of five starting offensive linemen are being held out of practice with injuries, Kendrick’s out for the year, and even rookie Braden Fiske is playing through a painful blister “the size of his foot”.

The team’s first preseason game hasn’t even been played yet.

In 2023, it was Cooper Kupp leaving camp on August 1st with a hamstring injury that Sean McVay first responded to by saying, “I hope he’s okay” and didn’t indicate a level of concern that would have made anyone think he was going to miss the first four games. Rookie Ochaun Mathis hurt his knee in the first training camp practice and started the season on injured reserve, costing him valuable development time.

In 2022, Logan Bruss, the team’s first pick of that draft class, tore his ACL in a preseason game. Matthew Stafford downplayed an elbow issue that was causing him to basically save his arm for the season, which ended being a half-season when he went on IR in December. Rookie running back Kyren Williams broke his foot in OTAs, started camp on PUP, returned, then spent six weeks on IR. Van Jefferson missed the first six weeks of the season after injuring his knee early in training camp. Bobby Brown hurt his ankle against the Chargers.

Of course, by the end of the 2022 season, Brian Allen, Tremayne Anchrum, Aaron Donald, Fuller, A.J. Jackson, Kupp, Joe Noteboom, A’Shawn Robinson, Robert Rochell, Ben Skowronek, and Stafford were all on IR.

And in 2021, the Rams put both Cam Akers and Raymond Calais on season-ending (we thought) IR early in camp, only to then have Darrell Henderson also get hurt during a training camp practice.

That training camp had less cause for concern than the most recent three, but does this represent a usual amount of nicks and bumps for all 32 teams, bad luck, or are the Rams doing something to cause annual training camp injuries of concern?

That’s a tough question to come up with an answer for without making baseless accusations. The only thing I know of that is a little bit unusual for L.A. at this time of year is that Sean McVay has always refused to play starters and key reserves in preseason games, which will continue in 2024. But does that do anything to help explain all the injuries happening in practices? Do the players go harder in practices because they don’t get preseason games?

Do the Rams need better strength and conditioning coaches, and trainers? A different program? Or is this just bad luck?

I know that it doesn’t seem usual because even outsiders who have nothing invested in the Rams are just randomly bringing up the fact that it is THE RAMS who have suffered the most injuries through two weeks of training camp so far. Will that change and will it look a lot better when we get to Week 1? It almost certainly will look better. Sometimes losing one player for the year is much worse than losing 3-5 role players for a while. The Rams have not had either of those things happen yet. But this is more cause for concern than McVay or fans were hoping for this year.