Not The Game. We’re Talking About Practice For Los Angeles Rams And Cincinnati Bengals

The latest NFL craze surfaced Wednesday in Cincinnati, where the Los Angeles Rams were in town to face the Bengals. Oh, and if you’re sports challenged when it comes to scheduling, it wasn’t for a postseason game.

Neither was it for a regular-season game nor for an exhibition game.

It was for a scrimmage.

Well, it wasn’t even a scrimmage.

• Zero tackling.
• Hardly any touching.
• Many 7-on-7 drills instead of the standard battles involving 11 players on each side of the ball.

Here’s all you need to know: Joe Burrow unleashed one of his famous bombs to all-everything receiver Ja’Marr Chase for a Bengals touchdown, or was it? Rams defensive back Jalen Ramsey rushed toward Burrow quick enough for a sack — you know, if the rules for this semi-scrimmage weren’t softer than a marshmallow.

Still, the Rams will meet the Bengals again Thursday for another Whatever These Things Are, but the session will remain popular for the elite fans of the franchise Forbes ranked last in NFL 2022 team evaluations at $3 billion.

The Bengals do have elite fans.

Despite losing the Super Bowl in February to the Rams on the winner’s home field, the Bengals have sold all of their season tickets for the first time in their 54-year history. They’ve also done the unprecedented by adding a waiting list.

Among the goodies offered by Bengals officials this summer to their old and new season-ticket holders was the ability to become one of those who packed much of the sidelines to see Wednesday’s “fancy practice,” and let’s call it that, because nothing else makes sense.

I asked Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp if these fancy practices are more productive than normal ones or standard exhibition games.

“Uh, I don’t know. Um,” Kupp said, pausing and thinking, after he spent the afternoon flashing many of the same skills he used to torture the Bengals earlier this year to become Super Bowl LVI Most Valuable Player.

One moment Wednesday, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford was finding Kupp near the corner of an end zone for a touchdown. The next, they were connecting for six points in the opposite corner of the end zone.

Those (ahem) highlights came during 7-on-7 drills.

So, here are a couple of more questions: Did Kupp’s touchdowns during Wednesday’s fancy practice really mean anything, and will he learn more about himself and the team Saturday when the Rams go from the Bengals’ practice fields in downtown Cincinnati to Paycor Stadium across the street for the second exhibition game of the season for both teams?

“I think you get, well, it’s been a long time since I played in a preseason game,” Kupp said, eluding to another NFL craze these days.

During the early stretch of Sean McVay’s six years as Rams head coach, he decided not to play his starters in exhibition games. A bunch of his peers followed his lead, especially since he turned 36 in January and already owns two Super Bowl trips and a world championship.

But these fancy practices?

“I think there is an element where you do get some more (out of these kinds of outings against other teams),” Kupp said, in his sixth NFL season since he joined the Rams as a third-round draft pick out of Eastern Washington. “You’re usually doing more stuff. We’re opening up the playbook a little more than we would during a preseason game. We’re testing some of our rules, some of the things we do offensively, and I think that’s really a great thing.

“We’ll do it out here instead of a preseason game, where you’re not trying to put too much on film, and you’re just trying to go through your basic installs, so I think there’s a little more of that out here.”

Whatever.