Sunday’s loss to the Rams might have been quarterback Matthew Stafford’s final game with the team.
Asked about his future after the divisional-round playoff loss to the Eagles, Stafford looked at his watch, said the game had just ended a little while ago, and added he would “take some time to think about it,” via Sarah Barshop of ESPN.com.
If his time with the Rams has ended, his time in the NFL hasn’t.
“I feel like I was playing some pretty good ball,” Stafford said. Asked if he has some game left in him, he said: “Sure feels like it.”
The 36-year-old Stafford, who was the first overall pick in the 2009 draft, has two years left on his contract. He has a $4 million fully-guaranteed roster bonus due in March, and a non-guaranteed $23 million salary.
That’s less than half of the current market for the position, and Stafford clearly continues to perform at a level higher than that.
The Rams adjusted Stafford’s contract as training camp opened. It was the product of quiet tensions between the player and team that lingered from the draft (when the Rams didn’t use a first-round pick on his successor) until the deadline for reporting.
After the Rams limped to a 1-4 start, there were whispers that Stafford would welcome a trade.
But then things turned around for the Rams, dramatically. They rebounded to win the NFC West and a Wild Card playoff game, before coming up short in Philadelphia.
Although the Rams won a Super Bowl in the first year after the trade that sent Stafford to L.A. for quarterback Jared Goff, two first-round picks, and a third-round pick, the Rams were quietly hoping after the 2022 season that the Jets would come calling if their effort to trade for Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers failed.
The Rams are in an awkward spot, to say the least. They’re undergoing a youth movement, with an up-and-coming defense and offensive stars like running back Kyren Williams and receiver Puka Nacua. And coach Sean McVay might be thinking about finding a younger player at the position.
When McVay was asked about Stafford’s future, McVay said, “I’m not really interested in talking about anything as it relates to next year.”
McVay was similarly tight-lipped last year about defensive tackle Aaron Donald, who surprisingly retired after 10 NFL seasons in March.
And so, after the annual coaching carousel stops spinning and the annual quarterback carousel activates, Stafford potentially will be an option for the teams that will be looking for new quarterbacks — and the Rams potentially will be one of the teams looking for one.
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