Stafford took off his helmet, put on a cap, and watched Jimmy Garoppolo and Stetson Bennett run the offense for the rest of practice.

With less than three weeks before the Sept. 8 opener at Detroit, McVay will err on the side of caution when it comes to his 36-year-old quarterback.

“My biggest thing was, I wanted to be smart with him,” McVay said after a morning workout in Thousand Oaks. “If there was any sudden movement that set him back, I just didn’t think it would be worth it.”

Stafford wore a glove on his left hand due to a cut on his thumb, McVay said, but the 16th-year pro otherwise appeared ready to participate fully.

“Could he have practiced today? Probably so,” McVay said. “And he felt good enough in the movement that he had. … But those unscripted movements, where a guy beats a tackle or a guard and you have to just make a sudden little movement — if there was any chance that it could aggravate a tight hamstring, then we wanted to avoid that.”

The Rams will practice Tuesday and then depart Wednesday for Houston, where they will have a joint practice with the Texans on Thursday and a preseason game against them Saturday.

McVay declined to say whether Stafford would be a full participant in workouts Tuesday and Thursday.

“We will progress him as the week goes, but the goal in mind is making sure that we get a good couple weeks of preparation for the Detroit game,” McVay said.

Even if that means holding Stafford out of practice.

“It’s our job to be able to protect him,” McVay said, adding, “It’s our job to try to make decisions that are getting ahead of certain things.

“If he wasn’t a veteran player, it maybe would be a different approach. But he’s so sharp above the neck, and getting him physically feeling as good as possible is the most important thing.”

Stafford’s ability to at least do limited work is a positive sign for a Rams team that is waiting for the return of several injured starters.

Left guard Jonah Jackson, who had been sidelined since the first days of training camp because of a shoulder injury, went through stretching and some individual drills Monday.

Receiver Puka Nacua (knee), left tackle Alaric Jackson (ankle), right tackle Rob Havenstein (ankle), and cornerback Darious Williams are continuing rehabilitation work.

The Rams typically practice in the afternoon, but they will practice again in the morning Tuesday to prepare for their morning workout with the Texans in the heat and humidity of Houston.

The workout Tuesday also will be the Rams’ final practice at Cal Lutheran in Thousand Oaks.

The Rams had been scheduled to move football operations to Woodland Hills after training camp but because the temporary facility was not prepared for occupancy, they returned to Cal Lutheran, their base since 2016.

Next week, the Rams are scheduled to finally move to Woodland Hills, where it is expected to be warmer than Thousand Oaks.

McVay did not rule out changing the Rams’ typical afternoon practice schedule to mornings because of the heat.

“That is absolutely something we’ll explore when we get back from Houston,” he said.

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