Once vaunted for his or her refusal to rebuild, the Rams are in teardown mode getting into the 2023 NFL offseason. Big-name starters like Jalen Ramsey and Leonard Floyd have reportedly already been shopped on the commerce market. Now quarterback Matthew Stafford could also be among the many potential casualties. Just a 12 months after giving Stafford a $160 million contract extension following their Super Bowl run, Los Angeles has been calling groups about dealing the QB, based on NFL reporter Michael Lombardi.
“Matt Stafford is absolutely out there,” Lombardi mentioned on “The Pat McAfee Show” Thursday. “They would like to commerce [him]. They cannot [easily] do it, as a result of he is received $57 million assured. [But] they’re attempting to get out from it. [They’ve] referred to as groups, I do know this.”
While that could be the scuttlebutt surrounding Stafford in league circles, that is not the general public stance of the Rams. During his pre-free company press convention on Thursday, basic supervisor Les Snead mentioned that the crew is “going to undoubtedly depend on” Stafford, who he added is “one in every of our pillars.”
“To me in a rebuild you’ll simply bulldoze the home down, and once more rebuilding from the bottom up,” mentioned Snead, by way of NFL.com. “But when you’ve got somebody like Matthew Stafford, gamers like Cooper Kupp, Aaron Donald, there’s some weight-bearing partitions there that we nonetheless have, and we’ll depend on these — do not need to put stress on them — after which at level transform round them with possibly completely different teammates, completely different companions. And then even ask a number of the gamers who’ve been right here to maintain evolving and entering into that course, so it will be attention-grabbing.
Officially, Stafford’s four-year, $160M extension contains $63M assured, per Over the Cap. The Rams would really take up a web lack of $54M by buying and selling Stafford earlier than June 1. If they had been to deal the QB after June 1, nonetheless, they’d immediately save $1.5M, in addition to tens of tens of millions from 2023-2026. That’s discounting the potential of one other crew taking over giant parts of Stafford’s assured cash, or renegotiating the contract fully.
A prized acquisition for Sean McVay and the Rams forward of the 2021 season, Stafford arrived from the Lions as a part of a blockbuster commerce package deal together with two first-round draft picks. He threw a career-high 41 touchdowns whereas guiding L.A. to a Super Bowl LVI victory. But accidents wrecked his offensive line, his supporting forged — after which his personal well being — all through 2022, during which he performed simply 9 video games and downplayed hypothesis of an early retirement.
Fully wholesome, Stafford stays an above-average starter. But he additionally entered 2022 with questions on an injured elbow, and his contract would require clearing the aforementioned hurdles. So, whether or not that report is to be believed or not, it is unlikely he’d have a severe commerce market till deep into the summer season, offered there are nonetheless groups determined for a confirmed starter.
