Los Angeles Rams QB Matthew Stafford is just two years removed from leading his team to the Super Bowl. Stafford didn’t play well last season and then had his season cut short by injury. Now, he appears healthy and ready to go. Can Stafford stay healthy and put together a bounce-back campaign for fantasy football this season?
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What Happened to Matthew Stafford in 2022?
After everything went right in 2021, it was pretty much the opposite in 2022. The biggest culprit has to be injuries.
The issues started well before the season did, with Stafford unable to throw in the offseason due to his balky elbow. Once the season started, Stafford’s elbow looked to be holding up well enough, but he added injuries to his head, back, and neck throughout the season. Everything combined to limit Stafford to just nine games played. It was only the second time since 2011 that Stafford missed any games.
While the injuries were a problem and likely contributed to Stafford’s on-field struggles, he did, in fact, not play particularly well even when seemingly healthy.
In 2021, Stafford averaged 20.4 points per game, which was the third-best fantasy season of his career. In 2022, he mustered up a mere 12.9 ppg in his nine games played.
Stafford only gave fantasy managers one game with more than 20 fantasy points and threw in a second respectable outing of 17.4 points. In his other seven games, he failed to reach 15 fantasy points.
To truly put into context how anemic Stafford’s 2022 was, he topped 20 fantasy points nine times in 2021 and scored below 15 just twice. He played all 17 games that year.
It’s also not insignificant that the Rams had Robert Woods to aid Cooper Kupp for most of the 2021 season. Then, when L.A. lost Woods, they added Odell Beckham Jr. One player certainly doesn’t make all the difference, but it matters a lot having a second quality receiver.
Even worse, it wasn’t as if the Rams just lost Woods and Beckham and did nothing. They replaced them with Allen Robinson. In retrospect, Los Angeles would’ve been better off doing nothing. So, that didn’t help, either. 2022 really felt like a Murphy’s Law season for the Rams.
Will Matthew Stafford Rebound in 2023?
The good news for Stafford is he’s fully healthy now. He was able to throw all offseason, which is something he couldn’t do last year.
At 35 years old, though, he’s no spring chicken. But while older, Stafford’s not yet at the point where we should expect a noticeable decline for a pocket passer. Given Stafford’s lack of injury history for most of his career, I’m not one to project injury this season. As long as Stafford’s healthy, there’s a near 100% chance he’ll be better in 2023 than he was in 2022.
Of course, calling Stafford’s 2023 season a bounce-back campaign is not a linear term. There are degrees. Can he go back to being a viable QB1 in fantasy? Or will he merely be a passable QB2?
It’s only been two years since Stafford was good enough to throw for 4,886 yards and 41 touchdowns in a season. I don’t think that skill completely evaporated.
The Rams still have Kupp, who is also returning from a midseason ankle injury that required season-ending surgery, which is great. However, behind him, the Rams are perilously thin, with Ben Skowronek and Van Jefferson vying for the WR2/3 roles.
Stafford will have to rely heavily on Kupp and Tyler Higbee. But without a viable WR2, it’s very difficult to envision Stafford putting together another 40-touchdown campaign.
You may be thinking that Stafford doesn’t need 40 touchdowns to bounce back. He doesn’t. But in 2021, it took 41 touchdowns and nearly 5,000 yards to merely get him inside the top 12 fantasy quarterbacks (QB11). If Stafford had thrown a very respectable 35 touchdowns, he would’ve finished outside the top 12.
Given how bad Stafford was last season, a QB15-18 finish would undoubtedly qualify as a massive bounceback. However, that’s probably not what fantasy managers are looking for in 1QB leagues.
The problem guys like Stafford run into is the lack of rushing makes them difficult to rely on in modern fantasy football. The only way a pure pocket passer can have a QB1 season is by throwing a ton of touchdowns. It’s just so much more difficult when the majority of QB1s are mobile.
Should Fantasy Managers Target Stafford in 2023 Fantasy Drafts?
Stafford is probably undervalued at his QB21 ADP. But there’s really not much of a difference between, say, QB18 and QB24. Outside of Superflex leagues, you won’t see more than 16-18 quarterbacks drafted, and even that’s on the high end, with many fantasy managers not bothering with a backup. As a result, Stafford is likely to go undrafted more often than not.
If you buy into Stafford as still talented and still capable of producing like he did in 2021, you could conceivably rank him as high as QB15. That would be enough to justify taking him as a backup if you don’t draft one of the top quarterbacks.
With that said, I’m not interested in Stafford this season. I’m sure he will have a few spike weeks and pop up as a viable streamer during favorable matchups. However, I will certainly be taking a top-12 QB in all of my leagues. And in the ones where I end up not getting a top 6-8 option and opt for a second QB, Stafford is not the type of late-round guy to target. You want more upside than that.
Backups need to have the potential to absolutely smash and overtake your starter. You don’t want safety in a backup QB — you can find that streaming. You want pure upside. Stafford is just not that guy.
So, while I’m confident he bounces back to some degree in 2023, Stafford’s still not a quarterback fantasy managers should look to draft.