Sean McVay Addresses Matthew Stafford Contract Situation With Rams

Arguably the biggest storyline in the NFL right now is Matthew Stafford’s contract situation with the Los Angeles Rams and if they will be able to work it out or if the quarterback will be playing elsewhere next season.

Stafford is only set to make $27 million this season and none of it is guaranteed, so naturally he would like a new deal. Even at age 37, Stafford is still one of the best quarterbacks in the league.

The Rams are operating on a budget though so clearly don’t want to pay Stafford near the top of the quarterback market money at his age. That has led to a stalemate and the Rams allowing Stafford to speak with other teams to gauge what he is worth.

Rams head coach Sean McVay, who is very close with Stafford, spoke about the situation publicly for the first time during an appearance of the “Fitz and Whit” podcast with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Andrew Whitworth:

“When you talk about the elephant in the room, these are the things that are really challenging because there’s no discrepancy on us wanting him to continue to lead the way and be our quarterback. The interesting and the challenging dilemma and dynamics within this are, ‘Hey, how do you continuously as a head coach look at the short term and the long term and be able to figure out what does that really look like?’ There’s no dispute. And let’s not get it twisted in regards to anybody wanting him to be our quarterback. Now, there’s layers to it. And as you try to put together the puzzle for your football team, you have to be able to say, how do we continuously build? How do we support him? How do we make sure that he’s getting, you know, what is his worth relative to those things? And so, you know, at the end of the day, we had something in mind, he had something in mind and nobody was right or wrong.”

As things currently stand, some teams have already expressed interest in Stafford, including the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, Las Vegas Raiders and Cleveland Browns.

If the Rams trade the quarterback, they are said to be looking for a first-round pick in return. It remains to be seen if L.A. would be able to get that for an aging quarterback, but these are all of the things McVay and the front office are weighing as they know other teams are interested:

“And then ultimately you’re saying, ‘Hey, there’s a ton of interest because this guy’s an incredible player.’ And we’ve had conversations where he could probably play however much longer he wants, but it’s been on a year-to-year in terms of our dialogue. Is that one? Is that two? Only he can answer that. But there does have to be an element of understanding, well, what does that future look like without this freaking ‘G’ that’s been our quarterback for the last four years? … There’s no right or wrong way to go about it. But I do think for us to be able to make the most educated decision in terms of, all right, you know, the cash budget that we operate on, the draft comp that you would get in return, you just need to be able to have all the parameters to at least explore it. He and I have had great dialogue throughout this process. I know where we want it to be able to end up, but these decisions aren’t made in a vacuum and that’s kind of the challenging part about it, but love this guy and he’s been incredible for us.”

At the end of the day, regardless of how long Stafford wants to continue playing, McVay wants him to be his quarterback:

“But what’s hard about it is, is when you’re saying, OK, what is that timeline where we’ve got this absolute stud leading the way, and then what does that look like to be able to measure, all right, if in fact it’s hard to be able to come to a consensus in a regard, so what does it look like to bring you back?. What are the things that you can get in return to continuously build the team? There’s no right way. You could never put a value on how important he’s been to us, like, especially at a force multiplier position. And that’s why you have a lot of sleepless nights and what you do know is this: There’s no doubt in my mind who I want to be our quarterback.”

With the Rams and Stafford set to meet at the NFL Scouting Combine this week, it will be interesting to see if they are able to make McVay happy and hammer out a new deal or if the organization will be in search for a new signal-caller for 2025 and beyond.

Sean McVay ‘adamant’ about Rams keeping Matthew Stafford

Even before Sean McVay went on the record and talked about Matthew Stafford’s contract situation, reports had already surfaced that he is ‘adamant’ about the Rams finding a way to keep the quarterback that won them a Super Bowl just three years ago.