It was a stressful but great day for Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams.
He woke up this morning in Carolina, greeted with the news that he was named All-Pro 1st Team as the best quarterback in the league. While not a confirmation of his MVP status, it has been a dictator for the past two decades, aside from last year when Lamar Jackson was named to the 1st Team, but Josh Allen won the MVP.
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In the opening game of the NFL playoffs, Stafford started on fire, regressed heavily in the middle of the game after taking a nasty hit to the finger, and then came alive in the end to drive the Rams down the field for a winning touchdown with seconds remaining on the clock. It was classic Stafford, who didn’t need to touch any of his three timeouts to piece together a winning drive on the road to make it back to the divisional round for the second year in a row.
Along with the victory, though, he also made history with the franchise he’s become synonymous with since joining in 2021. He broke Kurt Warner’s Rams franchise record of passing touchdowns in the playoffs with his first TD of the game to Puka Nacua. He would then go on to add two more, putting him three above the legendary Warner at 18 all-time.
Stafford will now look ahead to next week, where hopefully his finger won’t be a concern heading into what will be a more challenging test than the scrappy Panthers.
If all the favorites hold up across the weekend, the Rams will meet the Seattle Seahawks in their home stadium for a rubber match after having two classics in the regular season.
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The Rams won the first round in Los Angeles in a pure defensive battle, intercepting Sam Darnold four times. In the rematch, it was the complete opposite: the Seahawks came back from a 16-point deficit in the fourth quarter to win in overtime of a high-scoring slugfest.
This article originally appeared on Touchdown Wire: Matthew Stafford Makes Rams History in Playoff Win vs Panthers
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