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Matthew Stafford
And that, as I see it, is because Los Angeles, at this point, is working with a quarterback who knows what his value is to the other teams.
During the week leading up to Super Bowl LIX, Stafford’s camp got permission from the Rams to talk to other teams—so his reps have already had two weeks to test the market and see who’d be willing to give up trade compensation a big, new contract to land the 37-year-old star. It’s only steeled belief that, given the changing conditions of quarterback cost, he should be among the nine signal-callers now on deals averaging over $50 million per year.
The teams you’d suspect would have their hat in the ring have, indeed, thrown their hats in the ring. The New York Giants, Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Las Vegas Raiders and others have shown interest.
What’s hard to know now, though, is what the Rams would be willing to take to part with Stafford. If it’s a first-round pick, would the aforementioned teams still be willing to do a deal at more than $50 million per year? And if that first-round pick is in the top 10, as is the case with three of the aforementioned four teams, would the Rams be willing to take a 2026 pick instead of one this year? And if not, how in the world do the Rams fix this with Stafford?
Here’s the reality—last year’s Stafford-Rams compromise was a result of months of failed negotiations on a market correction to his existing contract. So the $5 million “raise” the Los Angeles brass gave him to get him to show for camp was really more of an adjustment. The sides agreed to borrow $4 million from 2025 and another $1 million from ’26 to fund it.
Just about any time you see a team do that, it’s basically an acknowledgment from both sides of the table that the agreement is a Band-Aid, and it’s awfully unlikely that the player will agree to play on the lowered number in the future year.
Why do it this way? Teams do it like this to avoid the precedent of adding new money to a deal without adding new years. The trouble in this case is the Rams did that already for Aaron Donald in 2022. And while anyone could easily argue that a once-in-a-generation talent deserves that sort of exception (and Donald did), it’s just as easy to see why the quarterback that won a Super Bowl with that generational talent would ask for the same treatment.
So here we are now, with Stafford having knowledge on what other teams are willing to pay him, and the Rams sitting there with a strong, young roster, and a timeline that doesn’t quite match up with Stafford’s, and a lot of water under the bridge.
Can the toothpaste go back in the tube after letting a guy look around? Will the Rams be willing to go to a financial level they didn’t before? Or would Aaron Rodgers coming on a cheaper deal (and he may be willing to take one to play in L.A.) or Sean McVay’s ability to maximize, say, Jimmy Garoppolo or Kirk Cousins at a cut rate, appeal to the team when combined with the picks coming back and extra money to spend on the rest of the roster?
It’s a fascinating situation, to say the least.
Still, Stafford really likes Southern California. McVay likes having Stafford. And over the next week or so, we’ll probably get a better idea on whether that’ll be enough to push a marriage that’s worked out really well for four years into a fifth season.
