THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Second-year quarterback Stetson Bennett, the Los Angeles Rams’ fourth-round draft pick in 2023, is back with the team and practicing in organized team activities after nearly a year away and on the non-football/illness list.

Bennett left the team in September after an undisclosed issue, which he agreed on Tuesday fell in the category of “mental health.”

“I was home (in Georgia),” he said, “and as far as what led to that, what transpired, I think we’re going to keep that in-house.”

He said general manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay were supportive of his need to step away. Snead spoke with News 19 WRBL in his hometown of Eufaula, Ala., earlier this month and said Bennett was “an exhausted human being” entering 2023 and said the absence was “very beneficial” for him.

“Based on everything he had done to walk on, to go to JUCO, to come back, to turn down small schools, say ‘I’m going to try to do this Georgia thing.’ To win a job, then to win the thing, and then to determine, ‘I’m going to come back.’ And when you come back, it’s really win it again or you failed. And that does take a toll on a human being,” Snead said, “so I was jacked for Stetson to be able to take that moment and breathe a little bit.”

Veteran quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was signed this spring to a one-year deal to back up starter Matthew Stafford. Garoppolo will miss the first two games of the regular season due to an NFL-mandated suspension. Bennett will receive development reps, which are a specific number of extra reps at the end of practice within the parameters of the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, to help shake off some of the rust.

“Hadn’t played football in a while,” he said, “hadn’t talked to dudes in a huddle, right, which is a huge thing. You’re relaying the play to them. A lot of nerves the first day (OTAs began a few weeks ago, with on-field sessions starting earlier in May). It’s gone, I wouldn’t say seamlessly but it has gotten better each day just like you try to make it.”

Bennett said he did expect to come back, though again declined to elaborate on the specifics around a decision he called difficult, though “necessary at the time.”

The time away showed Bennett he loves football, he said.

“You kind of see the world for the first time without football,” he said, “like the first time ever. What that might be like, whatever, you just don’t have it. You kind of come (back) out here and you’re hungry every single day. It did make me, ‘Hey, you want to do this. You want to work hard every single day and get better.’ It was different without it.”

Required reading

(Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images)