{"id":724515,"date":"2026-06-25T05:13:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T05:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/724515\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T05:13:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T05:13:21","slug":"matthew-stafford-has-talked-with-tom-brady-drew-brees-about-playing-into-his-40s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/724515\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Stafford has talked with Tom Brady, Drew Brees about playing into his 40s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having won his first MVP award in 2025, quarterback Matthew Stafford is coming off a year where he played some of the best football of his career.<\/p>\n

But Stafford, who turned 38 in February, is clearly on the back nine of his career \u2014 if not the proverbial final few holes.<\/p>\n

There was speculation that Stafford could retire after the 2025 season, but he put that to rest in his MVP acceptance speech. He and the Rams are now comfortable going year-to-year as it relates to Stafford continuing his career.<\/p>\n

As Stafford gets older, he\u2019s consulted with some of his former peers about potentially playing into his 40s: Tom Brady and Drew Brees.<\/p>\n

He addressed that in a recent interview with Chris Long\u2019s Green Light podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to [Brady] a little bit, I\u2019ve talked to Drew Brees<\/a> a little bit about it as well,\u201d Stafford said. \u201cIt is year-to-year because I think it\u2019s fair to the team, I think it\u2019s fair to me, my family \u2014 I don\u2019t want to sit there and say, OK, 24 months from now, I\u2019ve got to be ready to play another football season. I\u2019m like, phew, that just seems like a lot. I know that I\u2019m ready to play this year. And hopefully, I feel great at the end of next year, and I\u2019m ready to play another one after that. And then maybe we just kind of keep going like that. But, committing to more than that feels a little bit daunting. And I think a little bit unfair to the team and myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the last thing I want to do is sign some five-year extension, and after one year be like, \u2018Oh man, I\u2019m ready to retire. I want to spend time with my family.\u2019 And they\u2019re sitting there with four years on the books and had a bunch of planning done that I was going to be around. I don\u2019t want to play football not all the way in it, too, and just be half-assed leading it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stafford added that the Rams\u2019 brass has been great about the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, yeah, I don\u2019t know,\u201d Stafford said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how far I want to play. I know I\u2019m excited about playing this year and then we\u2019ll see after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stafford added that he\u2019s spent time talking with Brady in each of the last two offseasons. But one of his most notable conversations with Brees happened last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think one of the things that surprised me is, I was talking to Drew \u2014 this was before last season \u2014 and he was like, \u2018How old are you, again?\u2019 I was like, \u2018I\u2019m 37.\u2019 He\u2019s like, \u2018You might have your best five years of your career coming up.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Huh,\u2019\u201d Stafford said. \u201cI never really thought about it that way. You\u2019re taught as a player in this league it\u2019s a young man\u2019s game and the older you get, you\u2019re just kind of doing everything you can to try to stay up to par with everybody else. And Drew saying that kind of lit a fire under me, and it give you a little bit of belief that maybe an old guy can go out there and spin it around a little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, last year was a successful year for our team and for myself. And just gives you a little bit of energy moving forward and hope that that continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stafford completed 65 percent of his passes last season, leading the league with 4,707 yards and 46 touchdowns while throwing just eight interceptions. In the postseason, Stafford completed 55.5 percent of his throws for 936 yards with six touchdowns and one pick in three games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having won his first MVP award in 2025, quarterback Matthew Stafford is coming off a year where he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-724515","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\/724515","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=724515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}