At the outset of the NFL season, Matthew Stafford’s career appeared to be on the brink of fading away. An aggravated disc, the kind of back injury that has often tormented him, cost him almost all of training camp. Coach Sean McVay’s daily updates sometimes included whether Stafford could walk. Outside the Los Angeles Rams facility, Stafford parked a $160,000 “wellness chamber” that resembled an Airstream trailer and boasted on its website of something called “photobiomodulation.” The Rams were not certain Stafford would start their season opener until days before it arrived.
At the outset of the NFL season, Matthew Stafford’s career appeared to be on the brink of fading away. An aggravated disc, the kind of back injury that has often tormented him, cost him almost all of training camp. Coach Sean McVay’s daily updates sometimes included whether Stafford could walk. Outside the Los Angeles Rams facility, Stafford parked a $160,000 “wellness chamber” that resembled an Airstream trailer and boasted on its website of something called “photobiomodulation.” The Rams were not certain Stafford would start their season opener until days before it arrived.
And so, at 37, Stafford has delivered both the most surprising and perhaps defining season of a career that increasingly demands all-time stature. He leads the NFL in both touchdown passes (25) and passing yards per game (269.7) while having thrown only two interceptions. He has emerged as an MVP front-runner and pushed the Rams firmly in contention to win their second Super Bowl in five seasons. Last week, in a convincing victory over the San Francisco 49ers, Stafford flicked four touchdown passes, shimmying his shoulders after one — “swaggy” and “authentic,” in the words of McVay.
Stafford may have the benefits of playing in an offense — innovative for its heavy use of three-tight end formations — designed by McVay and throwing to world-class wideouts Puka Nacua and Davante Adams. Still, heading into Sunday’s NFC West showdown against the Seattle Seahawks, a fellow 7-2 juggernaut, Stafford has been the driving force behind what might be the NFL’s best team.
Stafford’s performance in his presumed twilight has allowed for a recalibration of his career. Stafford slung passes in the shadow of contemporaries such as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger, his credentials obscured by his dozen seasons in the Detroit wilderness. Stafford led the Rams to a Super Bowl title in 2022, and he has unmatched respect from peers. But he has made only two Pro Bowls and no all-pro teams and never finished higher than eighth in MVP voting.
Through more than half a season, Stafford has outplayed a generation of stars — Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson — thought to have passed him by. For years, Stafford was a historically great quarterback hiding in plain sight. In his 17th season, Stafford is finally getting his full due.
“Knowing him as well as I know him,” said Matt Ryan, Stafford’s friend and the NFL’s eighth all-time leading passer, “he doesn’t give a s—.”
Stafford is “a Hall of Famer, there’s no doubt,” Ryan said. Upon even cursory inspection, that becomes clear. Stafford is ninth all-time in passing yards. At his current pace, Stafford would finish the season with 64,393 career yards and surpass Roethlisberger for sixth, right behind Rodgers for most of any active quarterback. If Stafford plays two more years, he has a feasible path to join Brady, Brees, Manning and Brett Favre as the only quarterbacks to exceed 70,000 passing yards.
Ryan, now a CBS Sports analyst, does not like the parlor game of ranking quarterbacks in tiers. Whatever the system used, though, Stafford’s ability, in his mind, yields to none of the quarterbacks he played against.
“He’s good enough at any time to beat anybody on the planet even when other people are going at their best,” Ryan said. “Having competed against Brady, having competed against Manning, having competed against Rodgers and Ben, Philip Rivers, Drew Brees — I competed against all those guys. To go against Matthew was just as difficult as going against those guys. I always viewed him in that same light.”
Owing to circumstance, Stafford has not always been widely viewed with such reverence. The Lions drafted him No. 1 overall following the NFL’s first 0-16 season. In 2012, he passed for 4,967 yards for a 4-12 team. In 2016, Stafford engineered eight fourth-quarter comebacks for a 9-7 team that missed the playoffs. The Lions reached the postseason three times in his 12 years and won no playoff games. Only last week did Stafford even his career record as a starter at 115-115-1.
“Which is amazing, given how great of a player he is,” Ryan said. “You think back to some of those teams he was a part of, while they lost, they were always competitive. You knew it was going to be a battle, because he gave those teams a chance. … He’s made bad teams good and made really good teams great.”
Stafford’s style, a mixture of gunslinging flair and sharp pragmatism, amplified his reputation among peers. There’s a good chance he’s your favorite quarterback’s favorite quarterback. He will take an easy check down when called for, but he also makes throws into minuscule windows with military-grade power and precision. He is pocket-bound, but even on the run he unleashes laserbeams. “Effortless power,” Ryan said. He diagnoses defenses instantly, his mental dexterity built upon 17 years of experience.
“He’s got an unbelievable Rolodex in his mind,” McVay said. “He’s in total command.”
As he has aged, Stafford’s mastery has accelerated faster than his physical talent has diminished. “You just feel the defense moving,” Stafford said this week. He can control and contort a defense with a glance. His no-look pass on the game-winning drive of the Super Bowl — which Brady called the “ballsiest” throw he has ever seen on last week’s Fox broadcast — is Stafford’s signature highlight and also a standard part of his arsenal. By looking one way, he moved a defender out of the throwing lane required.
“What he does such a great job of is being able to keep his shoulders closed and his helmet facing the other way,” Ryan said. “But you can see it — his eyes are looking out of the backside of his face mask, where he’s going. But he’s manipulating the defense. That’s where you see the mastery.”
Last week, Stafford became the first quarterback to throw four touchdown passes without an interception in three consecutive games. Asked about the streak, Stafford shrugged and responded like a man who didn’t give a s—.
“The touchdowns have racked up the last few weeks,” Stafford said. “But I felt like I’ve been playing pretty good football for a while. Sometimes, I’ve had years where you feel like you played pretty good football and you look up at the end and the stats may not tell the whole story. That goes kind of both ways. There’s times where I felt I didn’t feel like I played that great and you look up and it’s like, ‘Okay, that was all right.’ ”
He has been more than all right this season, despite the ominous beginning. Stafford’s physical condition may have dominated the Rams’ preseason, but it hasn’t remotely been an issue during the year.
“You expect to see him come in and him look like he has an ailing back,” Ryan said. “You see the fluidity with which he’s throwing, his ability to still move. To make throws kind of closed off, across his body, that’s not easy on the back.”
Healthy and playing at this best, Stafford has a chance to burnish a résumé that may have snuck up on many fans. A Super Bowl triumph would make Stafford the 13th quarterback to lift multiple Lombardi Trophies, a list Rodgers is not on. His career has few parallels, and it is not close to fading, not just yet.
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