Once vaunted for his or her refusal to rebuild, the Rams are in teardown mode coming 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 yr after giving Stafford a $160 million contract extension following their Super Bowl run, Los Angeles has been calling groups about dealing the QB, in accordance with NFL reporter Michael Lombardi.
“Matt Stafford is totally accessible,” Lombardi stated on “The Pat McAfee Show” Thursday. “They would like to commerce [him]. They cannot [easily] do it, as a result of he is bought $57 million assured. [But] they’re attempting to get out from it. [They’ve] referred to as groups, I do know this.”
While which may 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 stated that the workforce is “going to undoubtedly depend on” Stafford, who he added is “one in every of our pillars.”
“To me in a rebuild you’d simply bulldoze the home down, and once more rebuilding from the bottom up,” stated Snead, by way of NFL.com. “But when you’ve gotten somebody like Matthew Stafford, gamers like Cooper Kupp, Aaron Donald, there’s some weight-bearing partitions there that we nonetheless have, and we will depend on these — do not wish to put strain on them — after which at level transform round them with perhaps totally different teammates, totally different companions. And then even ask a few of the gamers who’ve been right here to maintain evolving and stepping into that route, 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 thousands and thousands from 2023-2026. That’s discounting the opportunity of one other workforce 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 bundle 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 solid — after which his personal well being — all through 2022, through 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, supplied there are nonetheless groups determined for a confirmed starter.
