As Matthew Stafford got to the podium on Thursday, he joked that he was sure reporters wanted to ask him questions about the paper cut he suffered.
The Rams star quarterback, speaking to the media for the first time since training camp, then fielded inquiries about the back injury that kept him sidelined until this week.
Stafford, 37, practiced for the fourth day in a row, another small milestone for the 17th-year pro and a team aiming to make a Super Bowl run.
“The good thing is I feel pretty good,” he said. “The last couple days out there practicing, I was able to do even more than I thought I was going to be able to do the first day, and then I’ve just been trying to stack days.
“Backs are sometimes interesting things. It’s not cut and dry, what’s what and how you’re going to feel. So I’m really appreciative of our team, our head coach and everybody taking a day-to-day approach with me and doing everything they can to try and help me out.
“I have a feeling of responsibility to our team to do what’s right by them and I’m trying to do that as best as I can day in and day out.”
Stafford declined to discuss specifics of his injury, which coach Sean McVay has described as an aggravated disc. Stafford said there was not a particular offseason incident that caused the condition and said he has done “everything under the sun” to be able to return to the field.
Asked if he expected to be ready for the Sept. 7 opener against the Houston Texans, he said, “I’m not going to answer questions like that. … It’s probably a day-to-day thing. I’m just doing everything I can to try and be out there for the next practice.”
Coach Sean McVay said Stafford looked good throughout the week.
“I’ve seen a guy that’s gotten better and better,” McVay said. “He looks like the stud that we know.”
Stafford will not travel to Cleveland for the Rams’ final preseason game on Saturday, McVay said.
The post Matthew Stafford says it’s a ‘day-to-day approach’ in return from injury appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
