Steve Avila has missed the last four games with an ankle injury that he suffered in Week 1 against the Houston Texans, opening the door for Justin Dedich to step in as the Los Angeles Rams’ starting left guard.

The interesting thing about this development is the fact that Avila has been practicing and active in each of the last two weeks. He just hasn’t played a single snap on offense, only on special teams.

If he’s healthy enough to play on special teams, one would think he could play left guard, too. But that’s not exactly the case.

Sean McVay clarified on Friday that Avila is still getting back to full health, which is why he’s only played special teams. Once he’s fully healthy, the Rams expect him to once again be their starting left guard.

“Steve is still getting back to health,” McVay said when asked if Dedich is the full-time starter now. “Justin has done a really nice job. I’ve been really pleased with him, but the expectation is when Steve returns back to full health and plays the way that he’s capable of, we expect him to be able to earn that role back. We do feel really good about what Justin has done for us.”

Avila was active for the last two games, but those games were only four days apart with the Rams playing on Sunday and then Thursday. That limited his availability and recovery time, McVay says, so the Rams wanted to play it safe and keep rolling with a healthy Dedich.

It also helps that Dedich has played well the last two games, making it even harder for the Rams to make a switch moving forward. But McVay reiterated that they expect Avila to be their starter again, though he’s “going to earn that spot back by the way he practices.”

In other words, if Dedich outplays Avila in practice, he’ll most likely keep that job until something changes.

“Yeah, it was really hard just because of the Thursday game,” McVay said. “Steve was working himself back in. Even though a hundred-percent Steve, we still felt like that was going to be better. Not-a-hundred-percent Steve was going to be better to have him up in a backup role if something were to happen. The rapport, the continuity that Justin has been able to establish with Alaric [Jackson] and with Coleman [Shelton], we just felt like we wanted to be able to allow Steve the opportunity to get a full week’s worth of practice feeling like he was really had that ankle secure and sturdy for himself and we were really able to evaluate him fully. That’s going to be the expectation for our preparation with Baltimore, but he’s going to earn that spot back by the way he practices.”

With a few extra days to rest and recover, it’ll be fascinating to see if the Rams go with Dedich again or if Avila is able to win back the starting job at left guard. Having had more than a month to recover from the ankle injury, one would assume Avila will be close to 100% next Sunday, but the Rams seem to like Dedich quite a bit.

This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Rams’ Sean McVay explains LG plan with Steve Avila, Justin Dedich