The Rams are continuing a year-to-year approach with Matthew Stafford after signing him to a restructured deal that will keep him in Los Angeles for the 2025 season.
The team is expecting to revisit his contract every year as he considers retiring or returning to the field as one of the league’s longest-tenured players, per Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic.
Rams vice president of football and business administration Tony Pastoors said that Stafford’s annual contract review is a “good problem to have.”
“If you’ve got a quarterback, you’ve got a chance,” said Pastoors (via Rodrigue). “And we’ve got a really good one.”
General manager Les Snead said that retaining Stafford will push the Rams towards a “win-now” approach in April’s draft, making it less likely that the team will use a premium pick on a quarterback.
“Always open to drafting a quarterback,” Snead said, but he added that teams with a more immediate need under center tend to take quarterbacks higher than the Rams value them. He also acknowledged the possibility that another team could trade up to Los Angeles’ first-round pick (No. 26 overall) to draft a quarterback.
Head coach Sean McVay said that drafting a quarterback was “unlikely,” per Sports Illustrated’s Brock Vierra.
“I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t done a whole lot of work on the quarterbacks,” continued McVay. “I feel really good about where our quarterback room is.”
The Rams’ quarterback room currently consists of Stafford, veteran Jimmy Garoppolo and 2023 fourth-rounder Stetson Bennett. Garoppolo is on a one-year deal, while Bennett has two years remaining on his rookie contract. Since Stafford has stated a desire to play beyond 2025, the team doesn’t seem to be in any rush to find his successor.
Remember when Bill B wanted to keep Jimmy G over Brady, ha ha!
How do you re- condition Stafford is the question after the beat down into the retirement he should have taken from the birds.
He won me over watching him play in that playoff game in Philly. Good for him, good for the Rams and good for the league that he’s staying put … win, win, win.
Exactly, and I’m an eagles fan. The only game in this past post season that gave the eagles a difficult time was the rams game.
Don’t understand this Stetson Bennett thing with McVay…….Basically they have an older QB starting in Stafford and who knows when he stops performing good enough, a oft injured Qb in Jimmy G, and a nobody who no one except McVay thinks completes his QB room…..really?
Wouldn’t surprise me if Matty, Rodgers and Russell Wilson are all on IR by October. These guys could host a creaking bones convention…lol.
You don’t draft a QB in the first round to be your back up.
Isn’t that exactly what the Packers did when they drafted Jordan Love?
They viewed him as a successor at the time..not just a back up. Looking at future. Mcvay and Rams don’t see qbs in this draft that way..so would be looking at back up.
A QB with enough talent to get drafted in the first round should be able to be developed into a starter at some point if he gets good coaching. Of course some organizations (Bears and Jets come to mind) really struggle at developing QBs.