Turf Show Times
Matthew Stafford is at the stage of his career now where the topic of retirement comes up every offseason, but the Rams’ MVP quarterback says he has no plans to plan ahead. *“*It is year-to-year because I think it’s fair to the team, I think it’s fair to me, my family—I don’t want to sit there and say, OK, 24 months from now, I’ve got to be ready to play another football season,“ Stafford revealed, in a wide-ranging interview with former Rams pass rusher Chris Long.
It’s a fair retort for a quarterback who has earned the right to make these important decisions when the moment is right, and not to promise something now that he can’t deliver later, just to appease those who are curious, including Sean McVay.
During Stafford’s 42-minute appearance on Long’s “Green Light” podcast, the two Rams discuss everything from his “debilitating” back pain, how he trains differently, and what’s ahead. As far as he can see, at least.
Here were some of the most important pieces of the interview, as I saw them.
Long asked Stafford about his training methods and how they’ve changed over the years since 2009 and 2010. Said Long;
“Watching guys train, they have so much information at their fingertips that we just didn’t have in that era of football. When did you start to see the change to where you’re doing weight room 301 and preparation 301, my weight room stuff is smarter. Is there that much difference for a quarterback between year one and year eighteen?”
Stafford sat up and smiled before responding to this, and then went on to describe the weight training in his early years.
“I remember hand-clinging and front-squatting and doing all sorts like and just throwing on straps on the wrist in the NFL and just seeing how much weight I could yank up to my neck and thinking ‘what the hell am I doing’. Looking back on that now, I would fold under that right now.”
Stafford heads in a different direction for a moment and goes on to describe some rule changes that help extend QBs’ careers, and I was surprised that he thought it was the penalty a defensive player gets for landing with his full weight on the QB while completing a sack that made the most difference and not the hit to the knees that I’d assumed it would be.
Long comes back to say, “Ya, but it made a helluva story at the end of the Browns game,” referencing Stafford’s Mic’d Up moment. The clip that coincidentally opened my eyes to Matthew Stafford’s toughness.
After a back-and-forth where they bring up ‘Ground force’ along with several references to golfers and pitchers and the similarities to throwing a football where there is so much torque and using the legs Stafford says;
*“It morphed a little bit. I would say kinda five, six years ago is when I...
