After Sunday\u2019s NFC Championship loss to the Seahawks, Rams coach Sean McVay was asked a direct question about his quarterback.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you expect Matthew Stafford to be back next season?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, if he still wants to play,\u201d McVay said. \u201cWhat the hell kind of question is that?\u201d<\/p>\n
He seemed more incredulous than upset by the question. McVay then became pragmatic.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to ask him,\u201d McVay said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been totally present. I know that if he wants to, he\u2019s still playing at a pretty damn good clip. I mean, he\u2019s the MVP of the league, and if he\u2019s not \u2014 you know, I mean, I got respect for everybody else, but this guy played at a level that\u2019s just different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stafford, who turns 38 next month, was separately asked whether he\u2019ll return. He didn\u2019t say no. He also didn\u2019t say yes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t generalize six months of my life ten minutes after a loss,\u201d Stafford said.<\/p>\n
Stafford is due to make $40 million next year, the final season of his current deal. The Rams and Stafford have been operating on a year-to-year arrangement; if both sides decide to give it another year, he\u2019ll surely deserve a significant raise.<\/p>\n
Last year, things got dicey. Stafford received permission to explore a trade. He ultimately decided to stay put, getting more from the Rams but not as much as he could have gotten elsewhere.<\/p>\n
This year, they may be doing the dance again. The challenge will be to convince teams that he\u2019s serious about leaving, and that it\u2019s not simply an effort to get the best possible deal from the Rams for 2026, and perhaps beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Sunday\u2019s NFC Championship loss to the Seahawks, Rams coach Sean McVay was asked a direct question about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-430536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}