A crowded media room awaited quotes from running back Todd Gurley following Tuesday's minicamp session at the Rams facility in Thousand Oaks, Calif. It was the star running back's first time at the podium since the start of OTAs and the conversation surrounding the health of Gurley's left knee certainly has not slowed.
"Feeling good," Gurley said, fielding his first question, wiping the sweat from his forehead, presumably from an individual workout session with the Rams strength and conditioning staff.
The league's leader in touchdowns from 2018 did not participate in on-field activities throughout the entirety of the Rams' voluntary offseason program. He rather stuck to a personal plan that was laid out in coordination with head coach Sean McVay and head trainer Reggie Scott, that kept Gurley busy behind the scenes in the team facility's weight room and offsite with trainer Travelle Gaines.
"Yeah, I mean I'm up here anyways," Gurley said, confirming the plan designed to ready him for next month's training camp has been followed. "[I] feel like everything has been going great and you know, staying in touch with coach and Reggie and the strength staff — I still see my teammates, so everything is going well."
"Talking to Todd, he feels good, looks really good, and I think the plan that we set out a few months back has been followed exactly the way that we wanted it to get done," McVay said on Tuesday. "And now we know that it's still really about six more weeks until we report back to camp. And the goal is to have a very specific plan that he's feeling good about, getting him back, ready to roll on the field."
As for the conversation surrounding the health of his left knee, which was perhaps amplified by a report in early March from the Athletic's Jeff Howe, Gurley said he's leaned on support from family, friends, and teammates, while reiterating that dealing with the noise is part of playing the sport he loves.
Check out photos from behind the scenes of the Los Angeles Rams Media Day!
After all, facing questions concerning his health and on-field expectations is nothing new for the former No. 10 overall selection in 2015. Gurley answered definitively when asked if preparing for the 2019 campaign after missing time to injury ahead of the Rams run to the Super Bowl a season ago is similar to when he entered his rookie season coming off a torn ACL suffered as a Georgia Bulldog.
"No, I had bigger problems to worry about coming out of college, this is small," Gurley said.
"I'm training, doing what I'm doing in the offseason that I've always done up to this point," he added. "So it's just part of getting ready for training camp and the season."
