Turf Show Times
Matthew Stafford played some of the best ball of his career in 2023. Can he pick up where he left off?
Circumstances seemed bleak for the Los Angeles Rams when Matthew Stafford injured his thumb in Week 8 while laying out for a reception in a blowout loss to the Dallas Cowboys. The final score in that game was 20-43 and the injury to Stafford came in a lopsided effort. LA fell to a 3-5 record.
But that wasn’t quite the bottom for last year’s team. The thumb kept Stafford out the following week in the contest against the Green Bay Packers, and the offense was entirely inept with backup Brett Rypien under center. The Rams dropped to 3-6 and incurred a loss to a NFC conference team that also hoped to be in the heat of the wildcard race later on in the year.
It would have been easy for the Rams and Stafford to fold at this point—to just check out and call it a season like they largely did the year before in 2022. Instead, they dug deep and played their best football of the year to win six of their next seven games to close the regular season.
Individually Stafford finished the year playing some of the best football of his veteran career. He finished third in the NFL behind Josh Allen (42) and Dak Prescott (41) in Pro Football Focus (PFF)’s “big-time throw stat” with 37. An important caveat, however, is that Allen and Prescott both had notably more attempts than Stafford (648 and 651 versus 557) and on a percentage basis Stafford created more big-time throws than any other quarterback in the league.
Perhaps the most impressive feat of Stafford’s season was the fact he put the ball in harm’s way at the lowest frequency of his entire career—which is something he’s battled over his earlier years in Los Angeles. This excludes the 2010 season where Stafford played just two and a half games.
Despite dropping back over 600 times last season, LA’s signal caller committed just 12 turnover-worthy plays according to PFF. Turnover-worthy plays are considered interceptable throws (that neglect outcomes, such as the defender dropping the ball) and fumbles in the pocket. That’s good for a rate of 1.9%, which is considerably better than the veteran’s first two seasons in LA where he had turnover-worthy play rate of 3.5%. The 1.9% rate in 2023 ranked only behind Kyler Murray and Kenny Pickett across the NFL.
The sky is the limit for this year’s Rams offense with Stafford under center throwing to Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp with a revamped offensive line and a capable stable of running backs. But this team goes as Stafford goes, and if they want to compete for another title they need their quarterback to pick up where he left off in 2023.
Simply put, Stafford is the single most important Ram of the 2024 season:
