Does Matthew Stafford hamper the Los Angeles Rams chances of winning the Super Bowl

Does Matthew Stafford hamper the Los Angeles Rams chances of winning the Super Bowl

Matthew Stafford

The 2021 NFL regular season has come and gone and wild card weekend is finally upon us. NFL history will be made as we have the first-ever Monday night playoff game between the Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Rams featuring two-star quarterbacks in Kyler Murray and Matthew Stafford. As with this time of the year we all start to make predictions for how the bracket plays out. Of course, the favourites are there but with the NFL we know the age-old saying, ‘any given Sunday.’ What that means is that on any given day all that has to happen is for one team to show up and play the game of their lives and they can beat any team. A team that comes to mind with that saying is the Los Angeles Rams.

When LA made the trade to send Jared Goff, two first-round picks and a third-rounder to the Detroit Lions for quarterback Matthew Stafford, that was the deal that was meant to take them to the Super Bowl. It’s obviously not fair to say that hasn’t worked for them but it is a huge risk as they’ve traded away their future to win now. The reasoning behind it was that Stafford is an established passer who knows how to use his weapons effectively and is a bit of a gunslinger. The exact player the Rams wanted a QB.

With him at the helm and the defence they had in 2020, the team should be a favourite. However, a different story has been written. To take you through we’ll look at the two sides at play; the defence that isn’t the same shutdown force it was in 2020 and Matthew Stafford who, while he has been brilliant, has had major flaws especially at the end of the season.

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The regression of the defence

Von Miller and Aaron Donald
Von Miller and Aaron Donald

First off, this section has to do with the level of play rather than who is playing. Because looking at the names the Rams defence boasts, it’s arguably one of the best in the league. Any team that has Aaron Donald, Leonard Floyd, Jalen Ramsey and Von Miller on it would be deadly. Now while they certainly haven’t been terrible, it hasn’t been brilliant either and definitely not up to the level of 2020. They ranked 17th in total yards allowed and 22nd in total pass yards allowed.

Where they were good, however, was interceptions, ranking 5th with 19 and their 5.2 average yards per play allowed ranked 10th. They did play the run a bit better but that may be as a result of teams simply choosing to throw more against them as opposing teams finished with nearly the same amount of pass completions against them as they did rushing attempts, 416 and 443 respectively. A clear regression can be seen from the last year and a big factor of that is losing defensive coordinator Brandon Staley to their LA neighbours the Chargers. It was clear as day that season Staley schemes and coaching methods worked. That defence was difficult for just about any opposition and kept the Rams in games when the offence didn’t show up. Replacing him with Raheem Morris has had some positives but certainly isn’t what they hoped for. In terms of getting what they hoped for, see how the Stafford trade has worked out so far below.

Is Matthew Stafford a liability?

Matthew Stafford
Matthew Stafford

Ask any Rams fan this at the start of the season and they’d lose their minds at how absurd a question it would be. Stafford couldn’t have started the first quarter of the season any better. After four games he had 1222 yards, 11 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. Everything about the risk the Rams were taking was thrown out the window as at the point the move looked like a no-brainer. Since then, however, things have gotten a lot more interesting as Stafford’s inconsistency has proven to be a real issue. To emphasize this point we’ll look at three stretches in the season. First up, their four-game win streak from weeks five through eight.

In this stretch, the Rams beat the Seahawks, Giants, Lions, and Texans. I know. Those are teams they’re expected to beat and Stafford playing well shouldn’t be a surprise. But that’s the very point I’m trying to make here. We’ll revisit that in the next stretch of games. For now, Stafford was basically flawless. He threw for 300+ yards in all but one game, had another 11-2 touchdown to interception ratio, his passer rating was above 100 in all but one of the games and for two of them it was above 120. Good teams are supposed to beat the bad teams but the really good teams don’t just win, they perform brilliantly and win. Stafford’s performances were exactly that. As of now, everything looks good and the Rams sat at 7-1. The following three-game stretch wasn’t so great.

From weeks nine through eleven, the Rams would face their toughest stretch of the season playing the Titans at home, travelling to Green Bay to face Aaron Rodgers and finishing off in San Francisco against the 49ers. They lost all three games. They weren’t really close games either. When you look back to try and find a reason for it, you can only single out one person. Matthew Stafford. His 11-2 touchdown to interception ratio came all the way down to 5-5. When you face good teams, you simply can not keep giving them opportunities to score and that is exactly what Stafford was doing. Had this been 2020 maybe that defense could’ve kept them in those games but as we discussed before, this isn’t that defense. They can’t carry the weight of the team against the top contenders. That was most evident against the Packers where despite Stafford’s best game of the stretch, the defence couldn’t hold on to the Green Bay’s offence. What that means is that when it comes to these playoff games where the Rams will run into the best offences in the leagues, Stafford and his offence are going to have to keep up with them. Keep that in mind as we take a look at the final stretch of the season.

The final four games of the season saw the Rams play the Seahawks with a version of Russell Wilson who couldn’t throw a deep ball, the Vikings without Dalvin Cook, the Ravens without Lamar Jackson and a strong 49ers team. Seeing that and looking back at their record a 3-1 outcome with the one loss coming to from the Niners isn’t a bad outcome. However, looking further into the games shows what could be a very serious problem in the postseason. Remember when I said good teams are supposed to beat bad teams with great performances? That definitely didn’t happen here.

Over the stretch, Stafford did well to throw 8 touchdowns but frustratingly for Rams fans he matched his 8 touchdowns with 8 interceptions with his worst performance coming against the poor Vikings defense recording a 46.8 passer rating. In every single game, the defence had to bail out the offence and it worked because of the teams that they were playing but even then they struggled against a Tyler Huntley lead Ravens offence only winning 20-19. Of course, where we saw it fall apart was against the one good team in the stretch, the 49ers, where to his credit, Stafford started the game quite well but he fell off throwing two interceptions, one of them being the one that ended the game in overtime. The Niners game really wasn’t what the Rams wanted to happen right before the playoffs given Stafford’s inability to protect the ball and the defence once again failing to stop a competent offence despite the fact they had a 17 point lead.

Those last four games are extremely concerning for LA. They are now going to face the best of the best and they absolutely need to be at their best. With how they finished the season, however, they’re far from that right now. Luckily for them, the Cardinals aren’t exactly on fire right now but at the end of the day, if we get the Stafford of the last four games of the season, it won’t matter if an opposing offence isn’t having their best day, they’ll be able to take advantage of field position and put up points against this Rams defence. The only way forward for the Rams is for the Matthew Stafford of the first four weeks of the show up again and play his best four games again. If that were to happen then this team could make a case for the Super Bowl but as of now, it’s not looking very good for LA.

Also read: “I think the New England Patriots will win,” Kevin Wildes makes a BOLD prediction ahead of Patriots vs Bills in AFC wildcard matchup