Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford will not play on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks. Rams coach Sean McVay is opting to rest the veteran so he is fresh for the NFL playoffs. Stafford and the Rams have not had a week off since their bye in Week 6.
Stafford To Miss Game on Sunday Against Seahawks
McVay does not want to take any chances with his starting quarterback. Stafford will not play against the Seahawks on Sunday despite having playoff seeding at stake.
“We’re still working through the specifics of how we’re going to approach it,” McVay said after practice on Wednesday. “What I can tell you guys is Jimmy Garoppolo will start at quarterback this week. That’ll give Matthew a chance to be able to get some rest. Other than that, that’s kind of really all that I have as it relates to just the approach this week.”
With Los Angeles locked into the playoffs as the first-place team in the NFC West and the postseason beginning next week, McVay is making sure his quarterback is rested and ready for the first round.
A win by the Rams against the Seahawks in the season finale would likely allow them to play the Washington Commanders at home in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs. A loss means they would have to go on the road and face either the Detroit Lions or Minnesota Vikings, which seems like a much more daunting task.
Many experts are skeptical about resting Stafford who has not had good games in recent weeks. He has not thrown for more than 200 yards since the Rams beat the Buffalo Bills on Dec. 8. According to PFN’s QB+ metric, which weighs statistics we value highly and then uses them to evaluate a quarterback across the current season, Stafford ranks 22nd this year.
Stafford and the Rams survived a mediocre performance in Week 17, clinching a playoff spot. However, they will need a lot more from their quarterback if they are to advance through the NFC playoff picture. In scoring a total of 44 points in the last three games, Stafford has not graded above a C.
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Intriguingly, Week 17 saw Stafford struggle from a clean pocket (-0.04 EPA/DB) and play well when pressured (0.03 EPA/DB). That is a big contrast from his performance across the season as a whole, where he has a 0.31 EPA/DB from a clean pocket and a -0.46 EPA/DB when pressured.
His accuracy has also been an issue as he has missed the 60 percent completion mark in two of his last three games.
Stafford, 36, is a former first-round pick of the Detroit Lions, who took him with the No. 1 overall pick out of the University of Georgia in 2009. He was in the final year of a five-year, $76.5 million contract when he and the Lions agreed to a five-year, $135 million extension back in 2017.
Stafford was involved in a gigantic trade that sent him to the Rams in exchange for quarterback Jared Goff and draft picks in 2021. He signed a four-year extension worth $160 million which included $135 million guaranteed a year later.
The trade worked out for both teams as Stafford won a Super Bowl with the Rams and Goff has taken the Lions to the NFC Championship Game.
Is Sean McVay Taking the Right Approach?
The debate of whether to play your starters after a playoff spot has been clinched vs. resting star players has been going on for years. But McVay isn’t concerned about the optics of resting players if it means the team is fresher for the playoffs.
“It’s just you’re always balancing… I think the first thing is you have to take into account, this isn’t like the preseason,” McVay said. “You’ve a 53-man roster. You have the ability to flex two guys up and you have five inactive. Injuries usually make a lot or some of the decisions a little bit easier. I’m always trying to make decisions that I think are best for our football team.
“It might not be best for everybody else, but if you said risk-reward, I think it’s a great opportunity for Jimmy [Garoppolo] to be able to play. I think it’s also an awesome opportunity for Matthew [Stafford] to be able to get rested, rejuvenated and ready to roll for the playoffs. He’s accumulated so much experience. I think that’s the important thing while also saying this is an important game for us. We want to go compete to the best of our ability, don’t minimize that.
“Ultimately, you’re just weighing the pros and cons and tilting in those scales. Those are things that we’ve kind of done when we’ve been in similar situations. What I do acknowledge is that while it might not be for everybody, you try to have a thought process in regard to why you make these decisions.
“You use other people that you really value their input and then you’re able to articulate that with an open and honest dialogue with our players. They’ve always been so great about how we handle it.”
This year’s approach differs from 2018, when the Rams were playing for the number one seed, and even last year, when they were a Wild Card team where the seeding could fluctuate quite a bit, especially if there are upsets in the playoffs.
“Here, you’re talking about either the third or the fourth seed. You could sit here and try to play all these different things, [but] we have to be ready to go,” McVay said. “Somebody’s coming in here and that’s going to be an excellent team that earned an opportunity to be in the postseason. If you want to do what you’re going to do, you can’t necessarily duck anybody. You always have to weigh that risk-reward of we want to continue to make sure that all these games are important…
“…Whether it be the right or wrong approach, I always do what we think is best and certainly it’s a collaborative effort in terms of making those decisions. But ultimately if you asked, does the third or the fourth seed really matter? It doesn’t because I know that you’re going to play an excellent team, whoever ends up as the five, six, or seven of the teams that could be in that spot.”