WAILUKU, Hawaii – Rams head coach Sean McVay met with the media after the team held their first practice of minicamp at War Memorial Stadium on Tuesday, discussing offensive lineman Alaric Jackson's health status, where things stand on a possible contract extension for running back Kyren Williams and the latest on potentially re-acquiring cornerback Jalen Ramsey.
More on those top takeaways below.
1) Rams taking things "a day at a time" with Alaric Jackson
McVay confirmed Los Angeles' starting left tackle is dealing with blood clots and did not travel with the team to Maui for minicamp. He did not provide a timetable for Jackson's return, other than saying they were taking things day-by-day with him.
"You pray for him to be able to have a healthy, safe recovery," McVay said. "And we're really just taking it a day at a time with him. There's a lot of examples of people that have had situations like this, but they're all still so uniquely independent in their own right. And so we're gathering information."
Jackson has faced a similar situation before, missing the final nine games of the 2022 season because of blood clots. When asked about what they can apply from Jackson's first time dealing with this scenario as they form a plan this time around, McVay reiterated they're still in the process of gathering information.
"There needs to be a lot of discussion and dialogue with (Jackson) and with the doctors about, most importantly, what's best for him as a human being," McVay said. "And then you talk about football after that. But what we are grateful for is that we were able to identify this based on his communication and get him on the appropriate medicine to make sure that he's as healthy as possible."
McVay said they signed veteran offensive lineman D.J. Humphries to a one-year deal last week to be "proactive about a contingency plan."
2) Progress being made on potential Kyren Williams extension, but no other update
McVay said that progress has been made "behind the scenes" on Williams' extension talks, but had no other big updates to share beyond that and otherwise characterized the status as the same as it was when the head coach last spoke with the media.
"It's really the same as (the last media availability) – there's been a lot of back and forth, there's been some good proposals on both sides," McVay said. "We are getting closer to hopefully finding a conclusion to this. Now, until that's actually agreed upon from both sides, we're really in the same boat. But behind the scenes, I think there's been really good dialogue from (Williams' agent) Drew (Rosenhaus), really good dialogue from Kyren and just his group overall. He's done everything in his power to show up, be that pro, that leader, everything that we've asked. And so we're trying to be able to solve that, and if we were able to land that, we'll be excited about that. But no different than really, kind of when we spoke about this last week."
3) No nothing to to report on Ramsey
Not much has changed in terms of a possible re-acquisition of Ramsey, though Tuesday was the first time McVay indicated there may be too many obstacles to make that happen.
"Usually, those are scenarios and situations that you have to have plans in place prior to executing some of the decisions that have occurred," McVay said. "Definitely don't want to rule anything out because we're always open-minded to onboarding and acquiring quality players and people like him if we're able to do that, but there would be some obstacles that are real that are in the place of maybe preventing that from occurring."
