Don’t feel bad for Matthew Stafford

Matthew Stafford’s wife is upset with the Rams for moving on from Cooper Kupp, but don’t feel bad

As football careers go, few players in NFL history have had it better than Matthew Stafford. And if the Rams trade Stafford, which would be a role reversal for Stafford four years after he cornered the Lions into trading him to a more competitive team, it would probably only be for the betterment of both parties.

With receiver and “probably the teammate I’ve spent the most time with in my career” Cooper Kupp on the trade block, it seems the Staffords are preparing for their own potential change of scenery. Stafford’s wife Kelly has once again brought her podcast attention by hinting at NFL breaking news, this time revealing how upset she is with the Rams for parting ways with the very veteran receiver.

As well as re-writing history to suggest that the Rams were basically “one play away” from going to the Super Bowl.

But you should not feel bad for Matthew Stafford.

You should feel thankful because Jared Goff wasn’t going to get the Rams through the woods and into a 2021 Super Bowl championship. It had to be Stafford.

You should feel uncertain of what the 2025 season will bring if Stafford is not the team’s quarterback anymore.

You could even feel sympathetic to Matthew Stafford for having to deal with everything in his life, at work and at home, that he has to manage.

But bad?

Matthew Stafford traded the Lions

Usually teams tell players when they’re getting traded, but four years ago Stafford went to new general manager Brad Holmes and head coach Dan Campbell and said he didn’t want to be part of another rebuild. It worked out for Stafford because he went to the Rams and immediately won his first four career playoff games, including a Super Bowl, although in hindsight would he have made the same decision if he knew how good the Holmes and Campbell duo was going to be?

You can’t even really say that the two first round picks were the most significant parts of the Lions rebuild. This isn’t to say that Jahmyr Gibbs and Jameson Williams aren’t unique and dynamic weapons that Stafford would probably love to play with, especially Gibbs and what he’s done in his first two seasons, but most of what the Lions have built was already there or on the way, including Penei Sewell and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Stafford traded his team and he got what he wanted. How could any player complain about a deal as good as that one?

$400 million career earnings

The 2022 contract extension that he got from the Rams has not worked out good for the team at all.

In fact, if the Rams wanted to be really business savvy and probably do the right thing for the future of the franchise, they would have not extended Kupp, Stafford, or Aaron Donald. They would have cashed in their Super Bowl and started a rebuild in 2022. That’s what a heartless franchise would have done.

That’s not what the Rams did.

Instead, Stafford signed a four-year, $160 million contract with $63 million guaranteed. In the three seasons since, he has thrown 54 touchdowns, 27 interceptions, had a 91.8 passer rating, and the team has gone 22-18 in his starts. Stafford was most valuable to the Rams before he signed a fair, market-sized contract.

A heartless team could have traded him in 2022 or not extended him and seen how his next season played out. If they had waited, the Rams would have probably just let Stafford leave in 2023 free agency or tag-and-traded him after he missed eight games.

A Hall of Fame debate resume

Stafford may not go into the Hall of Fame, but he’s at least going to be in the Hall of Fame debates and that’s only because of the Los Angeles Rams.

Sean McVay helped Stafford tie a career-high with 41 touchdowns in 2021, and the Rams helped him get over a 12-year playoff slump. Matthew Stafford, and by proxy his wife, owe the Rams a debt of gratitude for trading two first round picks and Jared Goff just so he could say that he is a Super Bowl champion.

The Rams put Stafford in a position to win and paired him with a receiver who would have a season as productive as any by Calvin Johnson. Then they won a Super Bowl. Then they overpaid for him as a thank you. Now they’re trying to dig themselves out of that hole that they should have probably never created to begin with because they overvalued the over-30 contributions of their superstars.

Don’t feel bad for the players that the franchise has to part with this year or any other year. Instead, try to feel hopeful that the Rams will be able to recover and compete again in short order in spite of being loyal to a fault.