That is the view of NFL Network’s Good Morning Football co-host Kyle Brandt.
Gurley is still recovering from a knee injury that he sustained last season and although he is not expected to partake much in pre-season the Rams plan to bring him along slowly through training camp.
However, Brandt feels the speed of his recovery is not going to be a major factor in whether the Rams have successful this season in 2019.
The NFL expert admitted as such with a heavy heart for a player he professes to “love”, but he feels Rams head coach Sean McVay is the determining factor in terms of how he runs the team.
“I like Todd Gurley as a person,” Brandt said on GMFB.
“So I don’t relish saying this, but I don’t think their success does rely a ton on him.
“It’s not a slight to him, it is a huge compliment to Sean McVay.
“We all sat here for a whole year and said ‘nobody can go into the Superdome and win, it can’t be done’.
“And they went in and won without Todd Gurley. They did, he was on an exercise bike.
“I think McVay can work with anything.”
Gurley is entering his fifth season in the NFL this year and he has only had one season over the course of his career where he hasn’t broken the 1,000-yard mark. Despite that he still has amassed 4,547 rushing yards in four seasons.
The Rams comfortably won the NFC West with a 13-3 record last year and Gurley rushed for 1,251 yards in 14 games. He averaged 4.9 yards per carry and scored 17 touchdowns.
The 24-year-old sat out the final two games so the Rams could allow him time to recover from inflammation in his left knee.
Los Angeles navigated the playoffs and made it to Super Bowl LIII, where they lost 13-3 to the New England Patriots, but Gurley found his carries limited in their post-season run.
Gurley only mustered 30 carries in total over the Rams’ three post-season games, including the Super Bowl, whereas during the regular season he was averaging just over 18 carries a game, nearly double of what he was producing in the playoffs.
The running back insists his knee is now “good” and says he is waiting to see what he can do with it during the Rams’ upcoming training camp.
“It’s good, man. It’s good,” Gurley said of his knee.
“I’m just like, hey, we’re going to find out in training camp, you know?
“Once training camp comes, you’ve got the preseason, but you don’t have a lot in preseason.”
Brandt also likes the running back the Rams took in the 2019 NLF Draft – Darrell Henderson.
The speedster out of Memphis left college with 3,545 rushing yards on 431 carries and 36 rushing touchdowns. Henderson averaged 8.9 yards per carry during his final two seasons.
“I also think this rookie Henderson they drafted out of Memphis, he was ripping off eight or nine yards per carry,” Brandt added. “He is really good.
“I think with Gurley, he is the feature back. I think with Henderson and the other guys they have it’s going to be a potpourri and I think McVay is better suited to work with those.
“I love Gurley as a player, I like McVay more as a coach.”