The Los Angeles Rams could have a small problem developing this offseason and that's the fact that Matthew Stafford appears to be unhappy with his contract.
According to NFL.com, Stafford wants the team to adjust his contract so that it includes more guaranteed money over the final two years of the deal (2025 and 2026). As things currently stand, Stafford has $31 million in guaranteed money coming his way for the 2024 season, but he has nothing assured to him after that. With the way the contract is currently set up, the Rams could easily move on from Stafford following the 2024 season and it seems that he'd like some assurances that the team plans to stick with him.
Rams coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead were asked about the situation on Friday following the third round of the NFL Draft and they mostly danced around the issue. First, McVay was asked if the report was accurate about Stafford not being happy with his deal.
"I've had good dialogue with Matthew," McVay said, via quotes from the team. "We'll keep those things in house, but he's been working with our guys and we'll keep those things in house."
McVay and Snead were then asked if they thought the team would be able to "find a solution for the contract issue" and they basically ducked the question.
"We're definitely jacked to have Matthew as our QB," Snead said.
If Stafford's truly unhappy, he could skip OTA's this spring and McVay was asked what he thought about that possibility.
"We're going to take it a day at a time. We'll see," McVay said. "So we're going to try to figure it out. There's nothing that's more important than making sure that he feels appreciated and he knows how much we love him and want him to lead the way. I think that commitment that I think he wants to have can be reciprocated and we want to work towards figuring that out."
In summary: They made no promises that they'd fix the contract to Stafford's liking and they seem well aware that he might skip OTAs if nothing is done. That being said, McVay did point out that Stafford has been in the building working with the team over the past couple of weeks.
Stafford signed a four-year, $160 million extension with the team in March 2022, just one month after leading Los Angeles to a Super Bowl win over the Cincinnati Bengals. The win came just 13 months after Stafford was shockingly traded from Detroit to L.A. in a deal that was agreed to in January 2021. In three seasons with the Rams, Stafford has led L.A. to the playoffs twice, including the team's Super Bowl-winning season in 2021.
If the Rams are hesitant to add money to Stafford's contract, it could because of the quarterback's recent injury history. Although he was an iron man in Detroit, he's been battling injuries over the past two seasons, including 2022 when he missed eight games.
Although Stafford doesn't have any guaranteed money coming his way for the final two years of the deal, that could change over the next few months even if the two sides don't rework the contract. Stafford is slated to have a base salary of $27 million in 2025 and $10 million of that will become fully guaranteed at some point in 2024, according to a breakdown for the contract from PFT.
The 36-year-old will also have another $5 million become fully guaranteed on the third day of the league year in 2025, which means he'd have a total of $15 million in guaranteed money coming his way in 2025 assuming nothing changes between now and then. If Stafford is the starter in 2024 and he got cut after the season, he'd walk away with a $10 million consolation.
The Rams have already proven they'll move on from a quarterback if they think it's time -- they traded away Jared Goff in the deal that brought Stafford to L.A. -- so it's no too surprising to see that Stafford wants some financial assurances that he will be the QB of the future in Los Angeles.
