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Last summer at training camp, Sean McVay stood in the hallway of a team hotel contemplating the easiest way to sum up the Los Angeles Rams franchise bet on Matthew Stafford . He peeled the layers between a who’s-who of the NFL MVPs in this position. It started with Tom Brady, moved quickly to Aaron Rodgers, and ended with Patrick Mahomes.
“When the game or a game is good, they’re in that beat and they’re automatic,” McVay said. “And when it’s not right, they can fix it. This is where the separation occurs at the quarterback position.
That is, in a nutshell, why McVay wanted Stafford. He saw the damage this type of quarterback can inflict. He got cut off. He lost a Super Bowl because of it. And by outright refusal to repeat it every season, he uprooted his team’s most important position to answer it.
And three weeks into this NFL season, including Sunday’s 34-24 win over Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he’s reaping the rewards. Not only with a 3-0 start and a win over the defending Super Bowl champions, but with a quarterback at Stafford who looks capable of fighting for the league’s MVP this season.
Sunday’s tilt between Stafford 2.0 and Brady 2.0 was as much about the playoffs as it was about the first measuring stick. The Rams entered the last offseason knowing they needed kryptonite for Brady and the other elite quarterbacks who were in hiding in January and February. They should know their quarterback in 2021 was able to level the playing field at the position where it matters most.
Week 3 of the regular season might not accomplish that, but it may serve as a sign that the Rams are on the right track with their union of McVay and Stafford. And it should be, given that among the quarterback’s elites – MVP favorites like Brady, Rodgers, Mahomes and Josh Allen – Stafford looked the crisper and cleanest. Indeed, if it weren’t for the heroic ball played by Kyler Murray of the Arizona Cardinals, Stafford would clearly be the league’s favorite MVP at the start.
For the Rams, it’s a huge win that eases a twinge of offseason anxiety that was expected to linger under Stafford’s trading. After all, it’s not often that a team can punch a big hole in their salary cap and sketch their capital with one massive dice roll. That’s what the Rams did when they incurred the biggest dead-cap charge in NFL history (at $ 24.7 million) by handing Jared Goff two first draft picks. round and a third round selection in exchange for Stafford.
It was a move that was both astonishing in its admission of a mistake (Goff’s extension) while being remarkably transparent about how much was wagered over the next few years of a Super Bowl window. As much as McVay and general manager Les Sneads have sold the Stafford acquisition as a “must do” move, there’s no denying that its failure could also be the sort of thing that dooms them both. It had to not only work, but also start quickly. If not, we would now be talking about a tsunami of pressure and criticism rather than a tidal wave of momentum as the Rams break the seal of a remarkably difficult NFC West timeline. next week.
But we are where we are because the quick start has materialized. The bet is won. At first Stafford was everything the Rams thought he could be. It was worth pushing them to quickly strike a deal last offseason before the bidding war they were anticipating had a chance to escalate. And it would have taken the San Francisco 49ers, Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers all to conduct serious investigations before the Rams threw their selection hammer.
It was a defining moment that got better every week, as Stafford showcased some of the qualities that made him such an important Goff upgrade. McVay danced around these features whenever he spoke of Goff’s inconveniences. If anything, McVay constantly went out of his way not to criticize any part of his game. But it was enough to listen to him describe Stafford to understand what he wanted in his new quarterback and what he did. not like in his old one. His description has almost always crossed over to other league elites or MVP-caliber quarterbacks.
“When everything’s going well and it’s in the rhythm, these guys are pretty close to the automatic,” McVay said of the elite quarterbacks. “I actually think there are a lot of guys like that. But when it’s not right – when the three-way technique beats the guard on the man’s side in a six-man slip protection and all of a sudden he’s in your face – what does it look like- it with the way you fight through this? This is where the creativity of these top quarterbacks really starts to stand out from the crowd. It might sound different from the way Tom Brady does it compared to Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. But it’s there for these guys. Matthew has this ability. It’s going to be automatic when it’s right, but there’s going to be creativity when it doesn’t go according to the design. He can find a way to do it right.
“The game makes sense to him,” McVay said.
More importantly, McVay’s play makes sense to him. That’s what it’s about. He has a quarterback with all the special tools and who is physically and mentally wired in a way that he can grow with McVay. Or at the very least, operate at a high standard without McVay having to constantly create perfection around him. That’s something Stafford has shown this season – that he’s capable of going their separate ways when things don’t break perfectly (see: the racing game).
So now we know: Stafford can beat Brady and win a big game in September, playing like an MVP and making the bosses smart. But this kryptonite has to last. Not only against Brady, but against Rodgers or Murray or Russell Wilson. And come February, maybe against Mahomes or Allen or Justin Herbert.
This is the class McVay thinks Stafford belongs to – an ongoing MVP debate for the next five months, and the ultimate validation of one of the most expensive bets in NFL history.
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