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Sarah Barshop
While the Los Angeles Rams were negotiating with Matthew Stafford, Chief coach Sean McVay gave him a vote of confidence in the “Fitz & Whit” podcast.
McVay said there was no doubt that the Rams wanted Stafford to be their quartback, and added that the team needed to “look at the short short term” of what a new agreement would mean for both parties.
When adjusting the Stafford contract on Friday to keep it in Los Angeles, the Rams chose to concentrate in the short term, keeping the field marshal that gives them the best opportunity to win another Super Bowl.
“The best thing you can say about Matthew is that the brightest shines in the biggest stages,” McVay said. “When you look at the seven playoff games in which he has played since it has been a ram, he certainly gives you a chance every time you leave the field.”
While they were at the negotiating table, the Rams had to weigh Stafford’s request for an increase in their scheduled salary of $ 27 million in 2025 with the ability to continue investing in their young list in the future.
Before the 2024 season, the Rams and Stafford rework their extension of 2022, and finally accepted a adjusted contract the day the team informed the training camp. A source told ESPN during the training camp that the parties expected to return to the negotiating table after the season if Stafford wanted to play in 2025 and beyond.
The two parties did, and they were far enough in their valuations that the Rams allowed Stafford and Agent Jimmy Sexton to measure the value of the field marshal in the open market. Although he had conversations with the Raiders of the Giants of New York and Las Vegas, ultimately, Stafford and the Rams could reach an agreement on an adjusted extension of the contract/contract.
Although the Rams have restructured the agreement by 2025, they have maintained a significant part of their list that had 13 yards to organize the NFC championship game last season.
Returning to Los Angeles gives Stafford the opportunity to add to his NFL legacy. The field marshal, which has just finished its 16th season, is 191 yards less than the milestone of 60,000 pass courts. Only nine Quarterbacks have achieved that feat.
After the Rams lost in the Divisional Round of the playoffs against the Eagles Philadelphia, Stafford said he would take the time to consider his NFL future, but said: “I feel he was playing a pretty good ball. Then he asked him if he had football in him and said:” He feels like that. “
Only Stafford, 37, knows how much more he wants to play, but McVay said he believed that his field marshal was playing at a high level last season.
“I know he is playing a really good football,” McVay said at his season at the end of the season.
Last season, Stafford completed 65.8% of its passes for 3,762 yards with 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
Stafford has played many injuries during his time in Los Angeles, including an injury in his ribs at the end of the season in 2024.
In January, Stafford’s wife, Kelly, said in her podcast that Stafford broke four ribs in week 15 against the San Francisco 49ers. But after the defeat against the Eagles when he aggravated that injury at the beginning of the game, he said that “he did not feel it was a great factor.”
Stafford also ended the 2022 season in an injured reserve with a contusion of the spinal cord. He was in the brain shock protocol twice that season, playing in nine games.
Stafford has lost a game and a half due to an injury since that season, being out of the end of the regular season in 2023 and ’24 to rest after the Rams had already achieved a place in the playoffs.
Unlike the RAMS team that won the LVI of the Super Bowl with a list constructed with its “F — they choose”, the Playoffs 2023 and ’24 of Los Angeles were built in a different way. In the last two offenses, Snead and the Rams have rebuilt their list through the draft, writing in the first round for the first time since 2016, especially on the defensive side of the ball.
At his season at the end of the season, McVay was asked about the challenges of balance the salary limit now with the knowledge that, because they have had such successful drafts that they will also have to pay those players in the coming years.
“That’s good something,” McVay said. “What we know is that every year is its own separate entity. You want to be able to get ahead of those things and I think that in an ideal situation and scenario, it is building and developing from the inside with those Draft teams.”
But while the Rams will probably continue to write and develop those selections, they will do it with one of their “weight walls” that lead the way.
